Bir-es-Seba
Bir-es-Seba, February 15. 1856. — We have crossed the rough bed of the dried-up stream which bounds the desert on the north, and we now pass from “the desert of Beersheba” to Beersheba itself.* This was Israel’s nearest way into “the land,” just as it was ours; but they were “led about” through the borders of Edom and
* I do not understand the position which Lieut. Van de Velde assigns to Beersheba, nor do I recognise, in his description, the wells which we saw. He says, “at nine we reached the wells of Beersheba... they are five in number, narrow at the opening and deep.. they form a group of wells in the shallow dry bed of a stream called Wady-es-Seba” (Syria and Palestine, vol. ii. p. 136). These Jive small wells in the bed of the wady, are quite different from the two large wells, on the bank above the wady, and visible from a considerable distance. Lieut. Van de Velde must have crossed the wady further down, and so missed the real Bir-es-Seba. See Strauss’ Sinai and Golgotha, p. 144; Fisk’s Pastor’s Memorial, p. 213; Robinson’s Biblical Researches, vol. i. p. 204; and lastly, Dr Stewart’s recent work, The Khan and the Tent, p. 214. Eugene Roger, the Jesuit missionary, says of “Bersabee,” est appelle des Arabes El-bit BEEHSHEBA.
Moab, with the swollen Jordan to cross at last, instead of this shallow wady, over which the old man might have gone with his staff, and the little child have passed with ease, holding by the hand of its mother.
What may be the state of this river when in flood, or how long it may retain its waters, we have no means of knowing. It looks more like a genuine river-bed than any Sinaitic wady, and I have seen some of our northern brooks almost as thoroughly summer-dried as this. There is little sand in it, and the well-rounded stones, which pave its entire width, indicate a process of rolling and smoothing, which could hardly be effected by the hasty rush of a three days’ flood from these heights on our east. We leap or scramble down the southern bank, cross the bed, and mount the opposite side, in a fewminutes. The rise of its banks is only a few feet; but they are in some places sharply cut away by the force of the stream as it finds its way westward, through Wadyes-Suny to the Mediterranean. It may have been somewhat widened and deepened since Abraham and Isaac used to cross and recross it; but it has not been much
Abouna Calib, le puy de nostre pere Abraham, autrement nomme le puy de jurement.” Is Calib a misprint for Calilov Khalil? (La Terre Saincte, ou description topographique tres particulier des saincts lieux, &c.,p. 159.) He makes Beersheba four leagues east from what he calls Ziklag, and Ziklag five leagues from Gaza, — in all, nine leagues from Gaza or twenty-seven miles, the exact distance given by Dr Kitto. “The site of the wells is nearly midway between the southern end of the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean at Raphaea, or twenty-seven miles S.E. from Gaza, and about the same, S. by W., from Hebron.”
Abraham’s grove. changed otherwise, I suppose, or if it did change in the day s of Israel or the Romans, it has now gone back to its old state, so that we see it now just as it was when the patriarchs first pitched their tents upon its margin.
All is now bare, with only a few low shrubs to relieve the tameness. It was no doubt this bareness that led Abraham to plant the “grove” mentioned in Genesis, “where he called on the name of Jehovah the everlasting God” (xxi. 33).* As a shadow from the heat he planted it; and to one who had no temple with roof or wall or porch to shelter him, such a shade was needful,
* The word does not strictly mean “a grove.” The expression is, “Abraham planted an eshel” — that is, a tree or trees of that name. It wa3 under an eshel that Saul abode “in Gibeah, in Raman” (or “in Gibeah on a height”), 1 Sam. xxii. 6. It was under an eshel in Jabesh that the burned bones of Saul and his sons were buried (1 Sam. xxxi, 13). The eshel must have been a lofty branching tree, fit for shade, and therefore chosen by Abraham and Saul. It seems to have been not so suitable for the lower and warmer regions of the desert as for the high places of the land. So that it could not be a tar/a (or tamarisk) which Abraham brought up from the desert, but some much larger tree which he had brought down from the higher regions around Mamre where he had already known its shade. Do Saulcey mentions a wady on the south-east of the Dead Sea, called Wady-el-Esal, which he says takes its name from “the thorn-trees and bushes” which cover it (Journey round the Dead Sea, vol. i. p. 294, 480). The likeness between the Hebrew Eshel and the Arabic Esal is worth the noticing, as suggesting that the former was some thorny tree, and inviting us to ask whether it might not just he the prickly oak so common around Hebron and the hill country of the south, the same as is still pointed out as Abraham’s oak. If the tamarisk of -Egypt and the desert be the myrica of the classics, the contrast between it and the eshel of Scripture will strike forcibly those who remember the “humilesmyricse’’ of Virgil, the “fragiles” and “tenues myricae” of Ovid.
Abraham’s geoye.
and as such, not forbidden by God. Yet when it became the haunt of evil, the seat of vile rites and deeds of darkness, the grove was prohibited as a place of worship. Neither in the tabernacle nor the temple was God’s altar placed in the shade, but stood out, without a roof, under the bright sun, and all the worship there was by day, not by night. It is to superstition that we owe the “dim religious light,” and the same uneasy conscience that drove Adam into the thickets of Paradise, still makes the unpurged conscience love to haunt the gloom, as if darkness were more congenial than light, or as if the rueful look and the shaded brow might help in appeasing an impropriated God.*
There is no grove, no “eshel” for us now to sit under; but this matters not, save that the spot has thus one association less, and looks more like the desert than the land of promise, more like what it was when Abraham came to it than when he left it. It is still his country, but it is bald and peeled. Youth and manhood are gone, and it is the decrepitude of age that lies before us. We sit down on one of the large, well-worn troughs that girdle the two old wells, and seem as if springing out of the stony soil. The day is hot, though not scorching, and it is still little beyond morning. But we have been walking for more than an hour over uneven, though not rocky, ground, and we are fain to rest here for half-an-
* Not only had Abraham his altar here, but Isaac also (Gen. xxvi. 25); and the rabbis have not failed to observe that this is the only altar that is said to have been built by Isaac. hour, leaving our men and camels to take the road to Dhakarieyeh, which we see them doing, straggling across the water-course, some two hundred yards to the east. As our sheikh remains with us we have no fear of losing our way. He can tell us nothing about the place, or the wady, or the wells, but he will be a protection against the intrusion of the FellaMn (peasants) who are beginning to draw round us, staring and wondering, and who but for his presence might shew sufficient rudeness both of speech and deed.
There is no view on any side, beyond a mile or two; nor is there ought remarkable or attractive in the halfstony, half-verdant undulations that stretch themselves around. There is nothing repulsive or chilling, as in the desert; but there is not much that is winning, save in the memories of “the old age,” that seem to rise up from every knoll and hollow. These swells contain “no fabled hero’s ashes,” but they are the undoubted scene of more memorable doings than the “broad Hellespont” or “the desert of old Priam’s pride” recalls. The long grey vale of Bir-es-Seba tells a story as romantic, and more fruitful in faith and goodness than the plains of “wind-swept Ilion.”
While these green knolls spread out to the west, there rises, to the north, a very gradual slope, apparently terminating in a low table-land, which, after a little, passes into the hill country of southern Palestine. The circle round the wells is less bare than that beyond, and shews a carpet of fine, short, but not thick, grass,
THE WELLS.
telling us very decidedly that we axe now in a region where flocks might graze, and which man might till. There is hardly a desert-shrub to be seen, while, in addition to the grass, we see here and there the leaf of the crocus and lily shooting up amid the small stones of this rain-baked soil. Round this western well are five large stone-troughs, some full of water, others empty, some much worn and broken, others nearly entire, at a distance of three or four yards from the edge of the well. The well itself is about five feet and a half in diameter, just the usual size in our country; but we had not the means of measuring its depth, which, however, Dr Robinson gives as forty-two feet. It looks very old, and has been most carefully built; but the stones round the top-edge are polished and worn into deep grooves by the action of the ropes. This gives them a curious appearance, as if frilled or fluted all round. The water is clear and good. The Mr itself is as old as Abraham; and this is probably the very well dug by him (Gen. xxi. 30); but the present masonry of the well is more uncertain. It may be Abrahamic; it may be J ewish; it may be Roman; it may be Christian; it may be Mahommedan: who shall say which? Certainly it is not the work ot Bedaween.
The other well, which lies above a hundred yards eastward, is considerably larger, and measures nearly ten feet in diameter. Dr Robinson gives, as its depth to the water-surface, forty-four feet and a half. Round it are nine troughs, much like those of the western well; but there must have been originally ten, as the circle at one part is broken, and a blank appears. The lip-stones of this well are, like those of the other, deeply grooved, and the circle round it is clothed with the same short sward, and adorned with the not unfrequent wild-flower. Its water is good, and, I suppose, perennial; for these two wells are not mere cisterns or tanks, but “springs whose waters fail not,” *
More than once have these questions passed before me, in connection with this place, — How comes it that there are two wells, whereas the Old Testament narrative seems to note but one? Why is the name Beer, in the singular, not Herein in the dual, seeing there are two wells? Why has the Arabic given us, as its name for the place, Bir-es-Seba, the well of the seven, not the well of the oath?
As to the two wells, it seems not unlikely that the one is Abraham’s and the other Isaac’s. The smaller one was first dug by Abraham, and sufficed for him and his smaller household and flocks. The larger one was added by Isaac, as needed by the increasing numbers of his family, and, perhaps, the gathering population of the place. The Old Testament narrative does not say that there were two wells; but it makes it likely that
* Isa. lviii. 11. In the Hebrew it is “where waters do not lie,” or deceive. The Septuagint IpX/Trsv, the Vulgate “deficient,” and the English” fail,” all come short of the original, which so vividly presents the idea of deception and promise breaking.
ABRAHAM AND ISAAC.
such was the case: — “Isaac’s servants came and told him concerning the well which they had digged” (Gen. xxvi. 32), shewing that Isaac, as well as Abraham, digged a well. The Arabs have remembered Abraham’s seven ewe lambs, and so called it “the well of the seven.” So that the name belongs properly to Abraham’s, not to Isaac’s well. The western well was, in all likelihood, Abraham’s. It is much the smaller of the two, and, in the course of a few years, was found insufficient for the rapidly increasing household of Isaac, who, therefore, when he “waxed great and went forward, and had possession of flocks and possession of herds, and great store of servants” (Gen. xxvi. 13), required an additional, as well as a larger well. As, therefore, the western well is Abraham’s, so the eastern is Isaac’s. Here, then, it was that Isaac saw the heavenly vision in which God shewed himself to him, when he was resting on this spot after the vexing strifes with the Philistines. “And he went up from thence to Beersheba. And J ehovah appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham, thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed, for my servant Abraham’s sake. And he built an altar there, and called upon the name of Jehovah, and stretched out his tent there: and there Isaac’s servants digged a well,” * (Gen. xxvi. 23-25).
* The Jews say that there were two places here of the name of Beersheba, — one referred to in Abraham’s history, the other in Isaac’s. (Bashlam, cited by De Sola on Gen. xxvi. 23.) This is countenanced by Broken pottery is strewed on all sides, but in very small pieces, which are of various colours. That much of this is ancient, one need not doubt, though the fragments of Sarah’s pitchers have doubtless long since crumbled into dust. But all of it is not ancient; for the inhabitants of the district still use earthenware, as well as skins, just as they did when Abraham put the earthen jug on Hagar’s shoulders on this very spot, and sent her away into the desert (Gen. xxi. 14). Close at hand, to the north, loose stones are lying about in great numbers, though not of large size. They are not the natural debris of the underlying rocks, but are evidently artificial, both in shape and position. They cover a considerable stretch of ground, looking very desolate, and with nothing of life amongst them, save that of the small grey lizards, which are making free with them for shade and lodging. They are the ruins of Beersheba.
After remaining here for some time, and submitting patiently to be watched and gazed at by a dozen of fierce and filthy fellahin, of whose company we cannot rid ourselves, we move slowly away. Our Sheikh beckons us on, as he does not like these Arabs of Wady-Josh. xix. 2, where “Beersheba, and Sheba, and Maladah,” are noted as three adjoining towns. Eeil comes to much the same conclusion (on Josh. xix. 2). Reland’s conjecture, that the Skema of Josh. xv. 26 is the same as the Sheba of xix. 2, is doubtful, though it is countenanced by the reading of the Septuagint in the latter passage, where the name is given as 2a/xoecc. Yet, in xv. 26, that version gives us 2aA£&ad, instead of Shema.
RUINS OF BEERSHEBA.
es-Seba, and wishes us beyond their reach. He makes signs to us that we should rise to go. This we are very willing to do, as we have thoroughly gone over the whole ground, and surveyed the scene, comparing the present with the past, the baldness of what we see with the fresh verdure that refreshed the eyes of the patriarchs; yon filthy fellah, with the mighty Abraham or the gentle Isaac; yon ragged urchin-waif of Wady Ararah, with the archer of Paran (Gen. xxi. 20, 21).
We now leave the wady and the wells, as noon is coming over us, and reminding us of the five hours’ ride, or rather climb, still before us. We ascend to the ruins which lie close at hand, commencing a little above the level of the wells. They spread along the rising-ground for a considerable distance to the west, and stretch northward also upon the low table-land, of which the slight aclivity leading up from the wells is the commencement.* We saw distinct traces of houses, with hewn stones scattered here and there, and fragments of pillars. These last seemed to us post-Roman, and reminded us of the relics of Christian buildings which we had already met with at Feiran and Ruhaibeh. They probably belong to the same age.
* “Upon the neighbouring hill lie widely-scattered ruins. The foundation-walls of a town, and the floors of several Roman bathing-rooms, still in existence, prove the place to have been of considerable importance,” (Strauss’ Sinai and Golgotha, p. 140). This German is one of the few who have gone this way. He j assed up by Aujeh (which he speaks of as Augustopolis) RuLaibeh, Khulasah, to Blr-es.Seba, as we had done; but his narrative is very brief.
These ruins straggle widely over the low knolls that mottle this tract towards the west. Part of the debris is, as we have noticed, Christian. Part of it is Roman. But much of it may go back to a greater antiquity. We do not know in what age Beersheba began to be built upon. The patriarchs had nothing here but their tents; and, after the death of Isaac, when Jacob took up his dwelling in the more northern districts of the land, it was probably left without a settled occupant, till Israel took possession of Canaan, and first Judah, then Simeon, received this city as their inheritance. Then, at least, if not before, round these two wells there rose up a town which took up the traditional name, and handed it on to ages. Yet it is quite possible that the Philistines, or some southern tribe, may have raised a town here, in the interval between Jacob and Joshua, and Beersheba may be one of “the great and goodly cities which they (Israel) builded not,”in which were “the houses full of good things, which they filled not, and wells digged, which they digged not; vineyards and olive-trees, which they planted not,” (Deut. vi. 11, Josh. xxiv. 13).
Round the town grew up smaller hamlets and dependencies, at least in the later, if not the earlier ages of Israel’s history. For we read of “Beersheba and the villages thereof,” or, according to the Hebrew, “the daughters thereof”* (Neh. xi. 27). But mother and daughters have now passed away; and it is only the place of their ashes that we see. Thus “empty, and void, and waste” has the land become. The old Greek
IDOLATRY AXD JUDGMENT.
poet makes Philoctetes speak of himself as but “the shadow of smoke,”* and so might these stony hills be called but “the ruins of a ruin,”
Across and across these plains had the Philistine tribes once passed. Then came the patriarchs. Then “the judges” were here, in the days of Samuel, for he made his sons “judges in Beersheba” (1 Sam. viii. 2); and it was here that they turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment, Elijah was here, in his solemn march from the extreme north to the farthest south; for, judged by the time that it occupied, his journey to Horeb looks more like a march than a flight. The idolatries of Israel had their temples here, for the south as well as the north had revolted from the temple of Jerusalem; and Simeon as well as Ephraim had set up an altar of his own.-)* Sitting here one calls to mind the awful words: —
“Seek not Bethel,
And enter not into Gilgal,
And pass not to Beersheba,” (Amos v. 5.)
And as the sin of Israel, in listening to the oracles of this idolatry, had leavened the land from Dan to Beersheba (Benjamin and Judah only excepted) so is the judgment to overflow. 11 Behold!
The days are coming, saith Jehovah of Hosts,
That I will send a famine on the land;
* XOCrfVOV 6’/Ja. Sophocles, Phil.
+ u The high places of Isaac.” Amos vii. 9.
Not a famine of bread,
Nor a thirst for water,
But of hearing the words of Jehovah.
And they shall wander from sea to sea,
And from the north even to the east shall they go to and fro,
To seek the word of Jehovah,
And they shall not find it.
In that day,
The fair virgins and the young men
Shall faint for thirst.
They who swear by the sin of Samaria,
And they who say,
Thy God., O Dan, liveth,
And the way (idol) of Beersheba liveth;
Even they shall fall,
And shall not rise for ever.” (Amos viii. 11-14.)
These poor ruins, do they not shew how utterly the idolaters have “fallen;” — the idol and the worshipper, the dwelling and the temple; so that the bare scene around, where only the black tent is seen, carries the thought back at once to Abraham and his brighter days, overleaping the intermediate ages as if they had not been.
Yet it is with some difficulty that one conforms to common usage, and calls these low heaps of debris ruins. In the literal sense of the Latin mince, things fallen to pieces, or the Hebrew Horbah, desolation, we may name them so; but they fall considerably below what we commonly understand by ruins. They are certainly the remains of what was once a city or a village; but much in the same way as the mould of the churchyard is the residuum of what once was flesh and
TRIBE OF SIMEON.
bone. Accustomed as we are to ruins such as those of Rome, or Athens, or Palmyra, we feel as if there ought to be some other name devised for the bleached and sifted debris of Beersheba, or Rama, or Shiloh. Syria is a region of remains, rather than of ruins, so thoroughly has desolation done its work. From the wells of Bir-es-Seba to the roots of Jebel-esh-Sheikh, it is one vast stretch of rubbish; in the valleys, on the slopes, on the hill-tops. Hardly anywhere has there been left one stone upon another. Mounds of debris there are everywhere; more than this scarcely anywhere in all the land.
This is Simeon’s territory, ceded to them by Judah; but the Simeonites are gone, scattered over earth; and these poor Arabs whom we have just left are no representatives of that great tribe which quitted Egypt with nearly sixty thousand men, “able to go forth to war,” (jSTum. i. 23).* Their seventeen towns may not be all equally desolate with this, but not a Simeonite anywhere remains. The sons of Leah, like the children of Rachel, “are not.” Their princes and mighty men, Shelumiel (Num. x. 19), Shaphat (xiii. 5), and Shemuel xxxiv. 20), with their children’s children, have passed away. Jacob has no one to personate him here.
14 Surely, thus saith Jehovah,
Behold!
I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this once; Yea, I will distress them,
That they might find it so (my thrcatenings true).” (Jer. x.18.)
* Their number at the second census, before entering the land, was reduced to 22,000.
They have been “slung out,” till the land is left tenantless. Could some old dweller in Beersheba, of the days of Joshua or David, rise up from one of these hillocks and look on the scene on which we are looking, might he not say,
“My tent is spoiled,
Yea, all my cords are broken;
My children are gone forth of me.
Yea, they are not!
There is none to stretch forth my tent any more. Or to set up my curtains.” (Jer. x. 20.)
Under the Bomans, Beersheba was still a fort of some strength; — one of the long line of strongholds that stretched from Banias in the far north, almost to the desert of Et-Tih in the south. In Jerome’s time it was still a village; and even in Maundeville’s day (a.d. 1322), “some of the churches” of what had been “a very fair and pleasant town of the Christians,” still remained. But of Jew, or Roman, or Christian, there is now no representative, and of churches and forts nothing remains save these bald hillocks and scattered stones.
The first picture of the land which thus presented itself to us on our entrance on it, at the extreme south, was that of solitude and desolation. How truly had the vision snoken,
“I will set the land a desolation, and a desolation; Yea, the pomp of her strength shall cease, And the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, That none pass through..
DESOLATION.
Then shall they know that I am Jehovah,
When I have set the land a desolation, and a desolation.”
(Ezek. xxxiii. 28, 29.)
Passing from Beersheba to Dan,* the traveller’s eye sees this one thing — desolation. And the word means much; — silence, wasteness, and astonishment, all in one. Egypt was to be “a desolation,” (Joel iii. 19). Nineveh was to be “a desolation,” (Zeph. ii. 13). Babylon was to be “a desolation,” (Jer. li. 26). But it is only of the land of Israel and of Edom that this double form of word is used (Ezek. xxxv. S). One shadow was not enough, there must be two. One flood was not enough, there must be two. And it is quite a visible desolation. Paradise is now desolate, but where is it? Its blossom has gone up as dust. Sodom is desolate, but what eye has seen it? The bitter waters hide its hatefulness. But Israel’s ruin is spread out before the eye, that all may look upon it. The green turf does not cover the “dry bones” that are heaped up everywhere in this “open valley” of the dead (Ezek. xxxvii. 2).
* “From Dan to Beersheba,” was the ancient form of speech. But after the revolt of the ten tribes, when the north border of Benjamin be. came the terminating line of the kingdom, we have, of course, a change. Jehoshaphat “went out through the people from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim” (2 Chron. xix. 4). We read, too, of Josiah defiling the high places where the priests had burnt incense “from Geba to Beersheba,” (2 Kings xxiii. 8). The limits of the tribe of Judah are said to be “from Beersheba to the valley of Hinnom” (Neh. xi. 30). When Hezekiah sends out his messengers the old landmarks are resumed. “They established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba even to Pan,” (2 Chron. xxx. 5).
But the penalty exhausts itself, and the reversal of the long attainder comes at last.
“Thou shalt no more be termed forsaken, Nor thy land be any more termed desolate.” (Isa. lxii. 4.)
The curse that has been written on rock, hill, plain, and city, gives place to the blessing which shall yet more legibly be written all over the same. For it cannot be that the evil is a literality, and the good but a figure; or that the curse is for one people, and the blessing for another. It is Israel that has been scattered, and it is Israel that shall be gathered; and if righteous judgment has spoken out in the former, shall not faithful !.ove give utterance to its fulness in the latter? “I was wroth with my people; I have polluted their inheritance” (Isa. xlvii. 6); and it is this once sacred but now polluted inheritance on which we are now treading. But the soil of this land holds in it what no other does, the blood of the Son of God; and that blood which has hitherto lain on it only to defile and condemn it, shall put forth its power to cleanse. That which the old hymn sings of in reference to earth shall be found specially true of this “holy land,”
“At laetius quanto obtulit
Scse Patri spectaculum,
Ccelestis Agni candido,
Ablutus orbis sanguine.”
The restoration, or, if one may use the word, repatriation of Israel, and the healing of their land, seem things
B which are necessary not merely to verify certain ancient prophecies, but to account for much that is otherwise unaccountable, in the past history and present condition of that people. The desolation of their land might not, of itself, intimate much, or offer any serious puzzle. For Egypt, Chaldea, and many parts of Asia Minor lie as desolate as Palestine. But the peculiarity lies in this, that we have a people without a country, as well as a country without a people. The Egyptians have gone, we know not whither, — thrust out by their Saracenic or Turkish conquerors, who, in default of any legitimate claimants, have served themselves heirs to the land of the Pharaohs. All that remain to represent ancient Mizraim are the few Copts of Middle and Upper Egypt, — or perhaps the still fewer families of the gypsy race, if indeed these last be not rather Indians who, having found their way into Europe through Egypt, got the name of the country from which they last sailed.* But the Jew remains; scattered over the earth like the ashes of his own altar; or rather like the seeds of his own fields, which, sown among the nations, have sprung up everywhere into a wondrous harvest; a harvest which no man gathers, and about which no nation concerns itself. Always sowing itself, it springs up in silence; always on the increase, it is yet so scattered as to present no bulk in any one region, so that the
* Even the Scottish g3Tpsies retain I know not how many Sanscrit words in their common vocabulary. A Hindoo would at once find himself at home with them, at least in their words for common objects. true census of this people could only be taken by a combined movement among all the governments of earth * Though intermarrying with no Gentile tribe or nation, these Jews have not degenerated in form, or intellect, or vigour. They are no worn-out race, diseased and puny though the oldest extant, they give out no sign of age or decay. The blood of the patriarchs still flows in their veins, healthy and uncorrupted. Poor as they seem sometimes, as you see them passing through the cities of the Gentile, with the dark ringlet falling over their thin, wan cheek, you would know them in Alexandria, or Cairo, or Jerusalem amid a hundred others, — if not by their step and sinew, at least by their forehead and their eye.
Taking shelter under the wing of every Gentile nation, they find a home in none. No nation will ally itself or join affinity with them; they will ally themselves and join affinity with none. Inhabiting their Own “quarter” in the cities both of east and west, in London or in Jerusalem, not more from compulsion or
* “Thou hast increased the nation;” (Isa. xxvi. 15). Or literally
” Thou hast added to the nation, 0 Jehovah,
Thou hast added to the nation,
Thou art glorified!
Thou hast extended all the bounds of the land.” This refers to the day when Israel shall return, a greatly multiplied nation to a greatly enlarged land, and when they shall be truly “Joseph,” the increased or multiplied one. To this also refers Isa. ix. 3, “Thou hast multiplied the nation; thou hast not increased the joy; (but) they shall yet joy before thee, as with the joy of harvest;” for the day of their deliverance is the time when “the harvest of the earth” is reaped, (Rev. xiv. 15).
THEIR LANGUAGE.
custom than from choice, they keep up their national isolation, as if some mysterious cordon were drawn around them, over which they may pass to no Gentile, and over which no Gentile may pass to them. The “fugitives” of earth (Gen. iv. 14), their brother’s blood upon them, they increase and prosper on every soil, yet no soil seems to suit them, and no kingdom is willing to retain them. Exotics everywhere, they yet thrive and grow; but only and evidently for transplantation to a more congenial climate and soil.*
Speaking the language of every Gentile kingdom, — nay, carrying these tongues of the hated Goyim even to J erusalem itself, they yet own as their mother-tongue only the language of Abraham and David. In common intercourse, as neighbours or as merchants, they seem, by their speech, the men of Spain, or Germany, or Kussia, or Poland, or Italy, or England; in all things, sacred and national, they are Hebrews only.
This is something unique in history; a new thing in the earth. Here is a land waiting for a people, and a people waiting for a land. For just as they have never been able surely to root themselves in any kingdom, so
* u The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men,” (Mic. v. 7). Thus widely scattered over earth, like dew, shall Israel be; but in the morning, when the sun rises, they shall vanish from these different regions like dew, to be re-gathered into their own land. “The nation shall be a free-will offering in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning: to thee shall be the dew of thy youth,” (Psa. ex. 3). their land has never allowed the nations to root themselves securely in its borders. Seized upon by all nations, in different ages, it has cast them out in succession, denying them even tenant-right, and telling them that the inheritance is not theirs.
Is there no meaning in the fact that there has been for ages no real security for landed property in Palestine? No proper title-deeds can be given, or, if given, there is no law to enforce them. It is said that the only law in this matter is that of 6 use and wont” that when a man plants a tree, he can claim all the land over which that tree, when full-grown, casts its shadow at noon. But proper legal security there is none. The true heir is absent, and, in his absence, his land cannot legally be bought and sold. Had he been dead, the transfer might have gone on. But he is alive, and,
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though absent, he refuses to give his consent to any alienation of his patrimonial acres. Till his signature can be obtained, all purchases must be a venture, and all “deeds and dispositions” mere empty scrolls.
Even had the Jew not been the ancient possessor of Palestine; had there been no divine promise as to Jewish heirship, and no prophetic intimations of a future reoccupation, we should have been inclined to say, let this empty corner of the earth be given to this homeless race. But when these Hebrew tribes are the ancient tenantry; when they still claim the land, and rest their claim upon words that cannot be broken; when there are intimations, neither few nor dark, in
THEIR RESTORATION.
Scripture, that grace is to undo all that judgment has done, — then the question becomes greatly simplified, and we become more assured that the issue of the strange spectacle which the Gentiles have witnessed for so many centuries, the solution of the singular problem which has so often engaged the thought, not only of the general historian but of the infidel philosopher, will be the replacement of Israel in their own heritage, — a heritage wdiich has for ages been kept open for them, and Yfhich now seems more open to them, — more ready to welcome them than ever.
They are the most thoroughly intact “nationality” in the earth; and in the cry for the restoration of nationalities and heritages, may not the Jew, as well as the Pole or the Italian, be allowed to join?