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PEEPS INTO PALESTINE
Part II
Jerusalem;
or, Discoveries during Life in the Holy City
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Jerusalem is still, as it always has been, a town. Its life is therefore Bellady life, the life of a city surrounded by strong, lofty walls, and closed by large, massive, two-leaved, wooden gates, covered with strong iron or copper plates rivetted to them, further strengthened by ribs or bars of the same metals — the Bible “gates of iron and copper” (Ps 107.16; Isa 45.2; Acts 12.10. The “brass” of our Bible is copper). Though much shrunk in size, it undoubtedly occupies a part of its renowned ancient site.
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“Mount Zion, Sides of the North!”
The first view of the city, a most imperfect and uninteresting one, is generally taken by travellers from the Jaffa, or Joppa road; but it ought to be had from Mount Scopus, the lofty hill to the north-east, from whence it lies spread out in its greatest extent, and in the most striking aspect of its surroundings. Not only is this view of the Holy City the widest and grandest, but, what in the East is still more delightful, it is eminently the greenest! The “grass,” or wild growth of the Bible, flourishes on the hills of Palestine mostly on the north and north-east slopes, leaving the opposite southern sides comparatively bare, or clothed chiefly with desert species of plants of whitish or sea-green foliage. Three causes plainly account for this: First, the semi-tropical winter rain, the geshem, or “gushing downpour” of our Bible, from November to April, which comes from the west and south-west, and washes away the soil on that side (1 Kings 18.44, 45; Luke 12.54; see also Prov 25.23, where the north wind is said to drive away rain, which is always the case now). Secondly, the burning sun scorching down, unshaded by a single cloud, almost all day for some six months running, from May to October, pouring its rays from the south. Last, but not least, the terrible shirocco, the burning “south,” or “east” (strictly south-east) wind of the Bible, which in May and October (it is happily confined to these two months, the most dangerous in the year in Palestine) comes up from the south-east over the vast Arabian deserts, and beats on the south and south-eastern slopes like the blast of a furnace, almost entirely deprived of ozone, and possessed of a fearfully withering power (Job 27.21, 37.9, 17; Isa 21.1; Zech 9.14; Luke 12.55; Gen 41.6; Ezek 17.10, 19.12).
Hence the country must always have looked greenest and best when viewed from the north, a direction which all travellers should, if possible, take when they traverse it in spring. This would appear to explain why David singles out “the sides of the north,” or “northern sides,” in speaking of the beauty of Zion, in a passage which has much perplexed the commentators —
“Beautiful [for] elevation, the joy of the whole land,
Mount Zion, sides of the north!
The city of the great king!” (Ps 48.2).
(The word I have translated “elevation,” noaph, is a remarkable term, from a root which is used of lifting up and offering to God the wave offering. It is also used of lifting up to threaten. The word seems very beautifully and suggestively to convey the idea of a city lifted up on the mountains — it is 2,500 feet above the level of the sea at the summit of the watershed, and rises from the brow of steep slopes and precipices — of a city offered to God as the sacred home of His worship, the place of His presence, and also of one which, as peculiarly under His protection, may defy its foes.)
Not only is the view wider and more imposing from the northern stand-point, not only from here the hills around look greenest and loveliest, but also the steep slopes themselves, lifted up on the brow of which Jerusalem stands, as on a proud pedestal, as well as the trees, shrubs, courtyard cultivation, and the few “rose-gardens which existed from the days of the first prophets” (These, according to the Talmud, were the only gardens which police regulations allowed in the Holy City. Bama Kama, p82b), within the walls, must have appeared most verdant, and therefore to greatest advantage, from the “northern sides.” The name which Jeremiah gives to the city,
“The Table-Land Rock,”
is singularly appropriate (Jer 21.13, tsoor hammeeshoar, literally “Rock of the table-land, or level down,” that is, the “Table-land Rock”). It is a table-land surface on the summit of seven associated hills, rising up like one massive crag or rock out of surrounding valleys, namely “the nahhal (or ’watercourse valley,’ the Arabic wady) of Kidron” on the north and east, and “the gay (or ’gorge-like glen’) of Hinnom” on the west and south. I say like one massive rock, for the whole city is composed on the surface and to a great depth beneath of tertiary limestone. The upper strata, which is an exceedingly hard silicious chalk with bands of flint, called by the Arabs mizzey, has a depth of 71 feet. It is of marble-like hardness which increases with exposure to the air. I have had occasion to excavate much of this mizzey stone upon my own grounds on Mt Gareb, and have good reason to know how exceedingly hard, difficult of cleavage, and durable it is. Hence it was perfectly natural that Mount Zion should have been pre-eminently regarded from the earliest times as “the Table-land Rock,” the natural immovable, stone fortress of Judah’s “everlasting hills.”
And this leads me to the intensely interesting modern recovery of
The Ancient Stronghold of Zion,
which was regarded in the days of David as the Gibraltar of Palestine fortifications. The very blind and the lame, so said the Jebusites, could here turn David and his forces away (2 Sam 5.6-8). Josephus gives a magnificent account of the defences of the city, natural and artificial, in his day, and specially at or about this point. The first of its three walls ran round the summit of Mount Zion. It had 60 towers. “The largeness of the stones,” he says, “in three of these was wonderful.” They were white marble (mizzey), 27 feet long, by 10 feet broad, and 5 feet deep (Josephus’ Wars of the Jews, book 5, chap 4, sec 4).
In 1874, Mr Henry Maudslay, following the former work of Sir Chas Warren, fully explored and laid bare the rock foundation of this wall on the southwest brow of Mount Zion, in all probability the famous Jebusite fortress, “the stronghold of Zion.” It proved indeed a magnificent natural fastness, rendered by human art practically impregnable. The limestone crag at this point appeared as a perpendicular scarp, that is, cut smooth and straight as a wall, to an average height of thirty feet, as far as the Turkish authorities would allow him to lay it bare, a distance of some hundred and thirty yards. A base of a huge tower was exposed to view, in the shape of a projecting buttress forty-five feet square, also scarped, that is, cut straight as a wall. Thirty-six steps were seen cut in the face of this rock wall for the purpose of ascending to the top of a second smaller projecting square buttress, the base of a second tower. The bases of three towers were found to contain no less than eighteen beers, or water-cisterns, hewn in the rock. These “cisterns to receive rainwater,” and these “steps” are specially described by Josephus. (Josephus’ Wars of the Jews, book 5, chap 4, sec 3). A number of fallen stones, from three to four feet long, were found at the bottom with marks indicating Roman work. A ditch twenty feet wide was found at the foot of this scarp with a steep rough rock slope below, and, in one place at least, a second deeper scarp beneath the other, giving a rock-cut perpendicular face of some fifty feet in height!
Well might David, rejoicing in the security of God’s people, allude in triumphant language to these remarkable features as fitting symbols of the Divine protection, and to the awe with which they struck the minds of those monarchs who came to besiege the city when they first beheld them —
“Beautiful for elevation — the joy of the whole land, is Mount Zion . . . .
* * * * *For lo! the kings were assembled, they marched on together.
They beheld, and so they marvelled, they were troubled,
they hasted away.
Walk about Zion, and go round about her, count her towers;
Mark ye well her bulwarks . . . .
For this God is our God for ever and ever,
He will himself be our guide over death” (Ps 48.2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14).
This rock-cut scarp thus exposed, and which, if the authorities had not interfered, would doubtless have been traced round much of the city, must have formed part of the lofty, immovable foundation upon which the mighty wall Josephus describes was reared. Towers of amazing strength must once have stood out on the projecting buttress-like bases. But not one stone of these remains upon another! Well has Captain Conder RE pointed out that this scarp is peculiarly “valuable as showing that, however the masonry may have been destroyed or lost, we may yet hope to find indications of the ancient enceinte (boundary wall) in the rock scarps which are imperishable.” True indeed! Man can destroy the mightiest works of his own hands, but the “everlasting hills” with their mizzey rock defy his rage! Who can gaze on this piece of the ancient stony stronghold of Jebus without perceiving the force and sublimity of the words of the inspired Pilgrim song, which set forth the immovable stedfastness of the believer —
“They that trust in Jehovah are as Mount Zion,
Which shall not be moved, it abideth for ever!” (Ps 125.1)
(This is called “a song of degrees,” or “of going up,” and was probably sung on journeys to Zion.)
“Mountains are round about Her”
Equally striking, as viewed at the Holy City, are the words of the next verse, which tell of the security of the Lord’s people —
“Jerusalem! mountains are round about her;
And Jehovah is round about his people,
Henceforth, even for evermore.”
Deep, narrow valleys surround most of the city. On the south, as I have said, is “the gay, or gorge-like glen, of Hinnom,” on the north and east “the nahhal, or water-course valley, of Kidron,” and beyond these rise a series of connected mountains like a system of huge natural outworks. On the north and north-east stands Mount Scopus, on the east the Mount of Olives, on the south-east the Mount of Offence, so-called from the temple of Solomon’s heathen wives having been built there, and on the south and south-west the Hill of Evil Counsel, where, according to tradition, the Jews took counsel to put our Lord to death. These features may be well observed by a visit to the Science and Art Department of the South Kensington Museum, where a model is now to be seen of the rock levels showing the ground of the city as it stood formerly, before it was covered with debris as it is now, in one spot to the astounding depth of 125 feet.
And here I can well imagine the sceptic exclaiming, “Do you call these slight elevations ’mountains’? Why, they are only very small hills! The loftiest of them, Mount Scopus, does not rise more than about 150 feet above the highest point of the city, and only some 400 feet above the deepest point of the valley at its foot. Is this the accuracy of the Bible?” To him I should reply that, though it has been generally overlooked, they are, indeed, in the fullest sense of the English word, “mountains,” for each of these apparently small hillocks is the summit of a mountain mass that all must allow is indeed respectable. Scopus is 2,724 feet above the level of the sea, the Mount of Olives 2,641 feet, the Mount of Offence 2,411 feet, and the Hill of Evil Counsel 2,548 feet. Thus each of these comparatively slight elevations above the surrounding country is indeed a true mountain peak. Why, in the whole county of Kent, there is not a point of ground above 900 feet high! But this is not all. The Hebrew word “mountain,” har, is given in Scripture both to the highland or mountain region, in general, and also to any hill, ridge, or hog’s back, such as Scopus or Olivet. Thus Ebal and Gerizim are each called a har, or “mountain” (Josh 8.33). Zion, which is lower than most of the hills that stand round it, is repeatedly spoken of as a har (Ps 2.6; Lam 5.18, etc), while Olivet itself is in one place actually called by this name (Zech 14.4). It is, therefore, literally and minutely accurate to speak of the Holy City as surrounded by harim, or “mountains.”
“The mountains” in a most striking manner are indeed “round about her.” With their deep, narrow, intervening valleys, more or less precipitous on each side, they stand like vast earthworks and fosses — a natural fortification around “the city of the Great King.”
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The Apheek
Aqueducts are, and always must have been, very common in Palestine, not only for bringing water to waterless towns, but also for the purpose of irrigating gardens. Ruined remains of these structures are to be found everywhere throughout the country.
It seems certain that there must have been a familiar technical term for them in Hebrew, and that the writers of the Bible, who draw their imagery so largely from the features of garden culture, must have referred to these precious water-channels. One word in Hebrew, the sense of which seems to have been entirely overlooked, must plainly have borne this meaning, the word apheek, which occurs eighteen times in the Old Testament, and also in some names of places, as Aphaik, near Beth-horon (1 Sam. 4.1, spelt Aphek in our Version, and see 1 Kings 20.30; 2 Kings 13.17). The translators of our Authorised Version have been able to make but little of it, rendering it by seven different English words, most frequently by “river,” which it cannot possibly mean. The word comes from aphak, “restrained,” or “forced,” and this is the main idea of an aqueduct, which is a structure formed for the purpose of constraining or forcing a stream of water to flow in a desired direction. So strongly were the Palestine aqueducts made that their ruins, probably in some places two thousand years old, remain to this day. In rare instances (there is one at Jerusalem) they are fashioned of bored stones. Sometimes for a short distance they are cut as open grooves in the hard limestone of the hills, or as small channels bored through their sides. Where the levels require it, they are built-up stone structures above ground. But the aqueducts of Palestine mostly consist of earthenware pipes, laid on or under ground in a casing of strong cement. Apheek, I contend, in its technical sense, stands for an ordinary covered Palestine aqueduct, but it is also poetically applied to the natural underground channels, which supply springs (2 Sam 22.16; Ps 18.15), and to the gorge-like, rocky beds of some mountain streams which appear like huge open aqueducts (Ezek 6.3, 34.13, 35.8, 36.4-6).
View in this light the highly poetical description of Behemoth, the hippopotamus, given by God Himself in the Book of Job —
“His bones are aqueducts (Apheekeem) of copper” (Job 40.18).
In our Version it is rendered by the extraordinary expression “strong pieces,” a translation of the word for which there is no warrant, and which possesses no special fitness. But observe how the word “aqueducts” gives us a truly striking figure, magnificent in its Oriental boldness!
But what a depth of new meaning and beauty now clothes the pathetic and familiar, but hitherto little understood words of David —
“As the hind pants over the aqueducts of water,
So pants my soul after Thee, O God” (Ps 42.1. The words here are ’al apheekaiy-mayim, “Over the aqueducts of water.”)
In our Version the words read “panteth after the waterbrooks.” But the preposition ’al, here, in almost every case means “upon,” or “over,” and surely no deer would “pant,” or “bray,” for water if it were standing over an open brook. The repetition involved in the expression “aqueducts of water,” which may seem strange and unnatural to the English reader, is very characteristic in the case of Hebrew speech, where I have traced no less than some forty varieties of this essentially Oriental figure Repetition. This forty-second Psalm appears to have been written in Gilead, when David had to fly there from Jerusalem, driven out by Absalom’s rebellion. The thought that he is expressing is that of his painful inability to reach those spiritual privileges which he had formerly enjoyed in Zion. The whole force of his striking comparison is lost in our Bible. To use my own words in another place David is “lamenting his banishment from Zion and all its spiritual privileges in the manifested presence of Jehovah. He thirsts after God, and longs to taste again the joy of His house, like the parched and weary hind who comes to a covered channel conveying the living waters of some far-off spring across the intervening desert. She scents the precious current in its bed of adamantine cement, or hears its rippling flow close beneath her feet, or perchance sees it deep down through one of the narrow air-holes, and as she agonises for the inaccessible draught, she ’pants over the aqueducts of water!’”
Shivering the Potter’s Vessel
I have said that aqueducts are largely composed of cement. Cement is also required in great quantities for the underground cisterns attached to houses, in which rain-water is collected in the winter for use during the year, called, in Arabic, beer, the Hebrew beer, or “well.” It was, in former times, equally required to render water-tight the huge artificial pools, or open rain-water reservoirs, the ruins of which are to be found throughout the mountain districts. It is not only needed, as with us, to point the sides of stone buildings, but also to ceil the flat roofs of town houses and make them impervious to rain. For all these purposes a perfectly water-tight cement is required. As usual, only one kind is employed throughout the whole country, and the most ancient remains show that no other has ever been commonly used. It is composed mainly of lime and of what now bears the Arabic name of hhomrah. This second but important ingredient of hhomrah consists of old broken pottery ground down and crushed into tiny pieces, or into powder. The cement thus made hardens with every year, until, in the case of those beers and pools which are very ancient, it becomes as strong as stone. The highly primitive manufacture of this hhomrah still remains the same simple and striking sight that must always have been familiar to the dwellers in Palestine. It may be seen now each autumn in the gorge-like glen south of Jerusalem, called, as I have said, “the ravine (gay) of Hinnom.” At the upper, western end of this picturesque glen a fine pool, called Birket es Sultan, “The Sultan’s Pool,” fills up the entire width of its rocky bed. It has long been dry and in ruins, and one of the uses to which the smooth stone ledges on its northern side, nearest the city, are put is the preparation of hhomrah. Here the fellahheen gather together a quantity of old broken pottery, which they have bought in the city or picked up from the dust heaps outside. Most of the potsherds are of a dull reddish-brown, the colour universal in the case of the common ware, but here and there glazed fragments of rich gay colours and beautiful designs mingle with the others — for the heap forms a little world of pottery, representing rich and poor, great and small. The curious spouts of the common drinking bottle are very conspicuous, while pieces of mouths, necks, bottoms, etc., show that all manner of “earthen bottles” mingle here, from the jarar (our “jar”), three feet in height, down to the smallest works which are “wrought on the wheels” by the potter. The fellahh, having gathered up the end of his kamise, or long cotton shirt, and thrust it under his red leather girdle, or belt, to keep it out of the way — the “girding” of Scripture, which always takes place when any serious work is undertaken — seats himself, with his legs stretched apart, in front of a heap of the pottery about a foot and a half high by two and a half wide. The instrument he uses is a large rough stone, more or less round, about a foot in diameter. Scattering a portion of the broken pottery close in front of him he rolls the heavy stone repeatedly over it till all is crushed up. This may be seen constantly throughout Bible lands, and constitutes the striking allusion of the Psalmist —
“Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps 2.9).
Still clearer is the reference in Isaiah, which is evidently to some special process, where God declares of Israel’s iniquity that it shall be a “breach” of destruction to them,
“Whose shivering comes suddenly in an instant,
And its shivering is like the shivering of the potter’s vessel,
That is broken in pieces unsparingly;
So that in its breaking in pieces there shall not be found a sherd
To snatch fire from the burning,
Or to take water out of a pit” (Isa 30.14).
(The Hebrew verb I have rendered “shiver” (shever) means the same as our verb "to shiver," of which it is plainly the origin.)
There is a passage which gathers great and peculiar meaning in view of this explanation. The Prophet Jeremiah is bidden by the Lord, “Go and get a potter’s narrow-necked-bottle (bakbook), and take of the elders of the people and the elders of the priests; and go forth into the ravine (gay) of the Son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the Pottery Gate” (Jer 19.1-2.The kind of bottle mentioned in this passage, bakbook, takes its name from the gurgling sound (bakbook) which it makes in pouring out its contents. It is evidently the ordinary narrow-necked vessel of common dull red earthenware, now used for drinking purposes by the fellahheen, and which in pouring out makes just this gurgling noise. The gate mentioned cannot be the “East or Sun-gate” as in our Version, for this valley looks south, but must be the “Pottery Gate,” as Gesenius has shown. See the rendering in the margin of the Revised Version.) Any gate opening into the “ravine, or gorge-like valley of the Son of Hinnom” would lead close to Aceldama, “the potter’s field,” and this very Birket es Sultan where the pottery is now crushed. (See the sketch-map of Jerusalem and the surrounding hills.) “Then,” the prophet is
directed “shalt thou shiver the narrow-necked-bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: ’Even so will I shiver this people, and this city, as one shivers a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again.’” It is a deeply interesting and most significant fact that there is but one spot close to Jerusalem where this preparation of hhomrah is carried on, and that is where I have described it in this very “ravine of the Son of Hinnom.” Let it be borne in mind that localities, like all else in the East, never change. There is the highest probability that where pottery was crushed in t he days of Jeremiah it would continue to be crushed to-day. It seems plain that this strange symbolic action was nothing less than the prophet’s going to the spot where the manufacture of hhomrah took place, dashing the small water-bottle on the smooth rocky floor, girding himself, sitting down before one of the huge rounded stones, and then rolling it over and over the broken pieces “as one shivers a potter’s vessel,”
“That is broken in pieces unsparingly,”
that is, grinding it into tiny fragments and possibly into dust!
What a light, too, this throws on the Vision of Nebuchadnezzar, when “a stone was cut out without hands [that is, ’a natural rough stone,’ just such as is used in crushing hhomrah], which smote the image upon its feet of iron and clay [that is, of course, ’baked clay,’ or ’pottery,’ the only kind of clay feet on which an image could stand], and broke them to pieces, even grinding them to powder,” till they “became like chaff from the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away” (Dan 2.34, 35). hhomrah, it should be noted, is made of two kinds. One, called “thick hhomrah,” used for plastering the pools, cisterns, and aqueducts, consists of tiny fragments of pottery about a quarter of an inch square. The other, known as “thin hhomrah,” employed for “pointing” the walls of houses and making the flat roofs water-tight, consists of pottery ground into fine dust. The striking and unmistakable allusion in Daniel is plainly to the preparation of the latter kind, and, with a figure of exceeding boldness and beauty, represents the iron, copper, silver, and gold of Nebuchadnezzar’s image, crushed as easily as its earthenware feet!
Our Blessed Lord has a plain reference to the same familiar process, when, with respect to those who at any time oppose His kingdom, He says, “Every one that falls upon that stone shall be broken;” while, of those who are finally impenitent, He declares, with awful emphasis in view of our subject, “but on whomsoever it shall fall it will. scatter him as the dust,” that is, “grind him to powder” (Luke 20.18).
Measuring Corn
Another sight that arrested my attention in Jerusalem was the measuring of wheat and barley, and, as far as I am aware, it had never been described until I gave an account of it in my Palestine Explored. Each year in July or August all the dwellers in Eastern cities have to buy sufficient corn to last them for a twelvemonth. When it is brought to the purchaser’s door, a professional measurer invariably attends to find out and certify the true contents of each sack, who acts as a kind of impartial umpire between the buyer and the seller. He uses a wooden measure, like our own bushel measure but not so deep, called a timneh. He seats himself cross-legged on the ground, and upon the grain being turned out in a heap before him, begins to scoop it into the timneh with his hands. Next, he seizes the measure, when it is partly full, and gives it two or three swift half-turns as it stands on the ground, thus shaking it together and so making it occupy a smaller space. He again scoops in more corn and repeats the shaking as before, and does so again and again until the measure is filled up to the brim. This done, he presses upon it all over with the outstretched palms of his hands, using the whole weight of his body so as to pack it still more closely. Then, out of the centre of the pressed surface, he removes some of its contents, and makes a small hollow. He is about to erect a building on the top, and very naturally digs a foundation. With more handfuls of corn he now raises a cone above the timneh. With much skilfulness he carries this cone up to a great height, until no more grain can possibly be piled on its steep sides and that which he adds begins to run down and flow over. Upon this, the interesting and elaborate process is complete, the measure is regarded as of full weight and is handed over to the buyer. Corn is always meted out in this way, and is quoted in the market at so much per timneh. I have been at great pains to find out the exact co ntents, by weight, of the Palestine measure. The experiment I caused to be made was with wheat of the best quality. I found that a timneh of such filled up to the brim, unshaken and unpressed and without the cone, weighs just thirty-seven pounds, and with the cone just forty-four pounds. When, however, shaken together, pressed down, and, flowing over in the manner I have described, it holds forty-eight pounds. “Give,” said our Blessed Lord, in graphic and vivid allusion to this professional measuring, “and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they give into your bosom [that is, into the capacious natural breast-pocket formed by that part of the loose Eastern kamise, or shirt, which is above the girdle]; for with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6.38; see also Matt 7.2 and Mark 4.24). Observe, there is no less than eleven pounds difference in weight between a measure filled to the brim, as we fill it here, and one such as I have described filled according to the bountiful method of Bible lands, when it is “pressed down, shaken together, running over.” In this way 30 per cent, is added to its value! This is, indeed, good interest for our money, but thus liberally shall those be rewarded who have learned to imitate the example of their God and Saviour — who, blessed be His name, gave His own life — in the divine art of generous giving.
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Sifting Wheat
Wheat in Palestine, after it has passed through the exceedingly simple processes of threshing and winnowing on the open-air threshing-floors, comes into the market in a very dirty state. Dust, pebbles, short pieces of crushed straw, light and damaged grains, barley, seeds of wild plants, notably zowan (Lolium temulentum — bearded darnel, the bitter and poisonous “tares” of our Version), mingle largely in the measures poured into your sack by the professional measurer. But they never trouble much about that in Palestine. Provided there is good wheat, and a due proportion of it, they take but little account of whatever else the sack may contain. And the reason is this — that the separation of the refuse from the grain is a regular part of household work at the time of breadmaking. The process, with which I became very familiar, for it was always carried on in the open courtyard of our parsonage home on Mount Zion, has never to my knowledge been described by any previous writer. It is briefly as follows. The woman servant — for it is only women who sift — seats herself on the ground with her feet spread widely apart, taking in her hands a large but shallow sieve called ghurbal, some two and a half feet across. Having placed a small quantity of wheat in the ghurbal, or sieve, she commences by giving it some six or seven sharp shakes, so as to bring the chaff and short pieces of crushed straw to the surface, the greater part of which she removes with her hands. After this the main part of the work begins, which is done with much skill. Holding the
sieve in a slanting position, she jerks it up and down for a length of time, blowing across the top of it all the while with great force. In a word, she turns herself into a regular winnowing machine! Three results follow. In the first place the dust, earth, small seeds, and small, imperfect grains of wheat, etc., fall away through the meshes of the sieve. Secondly, by means of the vigorous blowing, any crushed straw, chaff, and such-like light refuse is either blown away to the ground, or else collected in that part of the ghurbal which is furthest from her. Thirdly, the good wheat goes together in one heap about the centre of the sieve, while the tiny stones or pebbles are brought into a separate little pile on that part of it which is nearest to her chest. The pebbles, chaff, and crushed straw thus cleverly removed from the corn, mainly by the angle at which the sieve is held and the way in which it is jerked up and down, are then taken out of the ghurbal with her hands. Finally, setting the sieve down upon her lap, she carefully picks out with her fingers any slight impurities which may yet remain, and the elaborate and searching process of Biblical sifting is complete.
What a vivid light this throws upon the two references to sifting which we find in Scripture! Under this striking figure Amos foretold the eighteen centuries of persecution and suffering which were to be borne by the Jews —
“For lo, I will command;
And I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations,
As [wheat] is sifted in a sieve,
And not a small stone (tzeroar) shall fall upon the earth” (Amos 9.9).
(This is quite obscured both in our Authorised and Revised Version, where the line in question reads, “Yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.” There is no hint in the margin of the true rendering, though it is plain that tzeroar, the diminutive of tzoor, “a rock,” could not mean “a grain of corn,” but would naturally signify a small stone, as it undoubtedly does in 2 Sam 17.13, where Hushai, to win vain Absolom, uses the exaggerated and truly Eastern figure of drawing a whole city with ropes into the adjacent river, “until there is not even a small stone (tzeroar) found there.”)
Driven hither and thither, persecuted by superstitious and apostate Churches, victimised by avaricious kings and nobles, made the sport of a cruel and ignorant populace, theirs has been a history of tossing and unrest beyond that of any other people. Nowhere have the “tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast” found a quiet abiding place. Not even to-day have they peace in Russia, Turkey, or stranger still in semi-Protestant Germany. Truly they have been like wheat sifted in a sieve, and that “among all nations,” and — solemn thought — at the command of Him against whom they have so grievously sinned, and whose “Beloved Son” they still blaspheme and reject. But the “command” for their sifting has been given not for their destruction but for their purification. Very fitly has this painful discipline been likened to “sifting,” for God’s purpose in it throughout has been to prepare them to take their place amongst the good wheat. From time to time, amid these trials, and by means of these trials, “the good seed,” “the children of the kingdom,” “the remnant according to the election of grace,” have been gathered out, and added to the Church of the First-born.
But here observe the importance of the discovery, to which I have already alluded, of the true meaning of the little word tzeroar. During the painful process of Israel’s sifting, we read,
“And not a small stone (tzeroar) shall fall upon the earth.”
Thus, as you will now perceive, the hardened unbelieving members of the House of Israel are, with graphic and minute accuracy, likened to the pebbles always to be found amongst the grain. Yet, even the hard-hearted members of this marvellously preserved people, those who still have what God calls “a heart of stone,” though cold, insensible, and worthless as the pebbles amongst the wheat, have not been allowed to perish, for so have been fulfilled the words, “And not a small stone shall fall upon the earth.” The existence of the Jews as a separate and unmixed nation is a standing miracle of Divine Providence. Without a national polity, without a king, without a land, without liberty, without the power to keep the law to which they cling, without the favour of God, or the respect of their fellowmen among whom they are still “a by-word, a hissing, and a reproach” — turned, as it were, to stone — yet they have not been allowed to fall out of the sieve of isolation and suffering in which, for more than eighteen hundred years, the Most High has placed them! Let us view with trembling this awful instance of the just severity of God, and turn with hope and longing to study that “sure word of prophecy,” which foretells how it will all yet issue in the conversion, restoration, and endless peace of God’s much tried, but still beloved people (Isa 11.11, 12; 27.12, 13; 51.60-62; Jer 16.14, 15; 23.5-8; 30.10, 11; 31; Ezek 34, 36; Amos 9.11-15; Zeph 3.14-20; Zech 10.6, 10, etc).
The other allusion to sifting is equally forcible. It occurs in the Master’s warning words addressed to Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (Luke 22.31). To this the bold, loving, impetuous Peter replied, “Lord, with Thee I am ready to go both to prison and death;” and at the beginning of that troubled and eventful night he really was, for he flung himself alone, sword in hand, upon the armed band who came to arrest our Saviour. But this was only the first part of the long and searching process of sifting to which Simon Peter was to be subjected by his subtle spiritual foe. A night of slow anguish and great perplexity followed, full of sudden surprises, in which Peter could do little and had to suffer much, whilst our Blessed Lord, now deserted by all, was hurried from one hostile tribunal to another. Sanguine and impulsive natures like this Apostle’s can ill bear up where patient endurance and calm watchfulness are required. Brought at last after dark into the splendid hall of the High Priest’s palace, and thrown amongst his mocking and haughty retainers, the humble fisherman of Galilee found himself in very strange and untried circumstances, as one surprise after another burst upon him. Thus Satan, with fiend-like malice, was “sifting” the disciple of Jesus. He was, as it were, keeping him constantly tossing about, as skilfully and diligently as an experienced sifter keeps the contents of a sieve of wheat continually moving! Like a sifter, the evil one was thus seeking to find out and bring to the surface all that was bad and worthless in the Apostle’s heart, and we know that his hellish exploit succeeded. Well was it for Peter that he was enjoying the all-prevailing intercession of Jesus, that the Lord, our Advocate with the Father, had prayed for him that his faith might not fail. In the issue Satan’s malice was baffled and Peter was saved.
The cruel and malicious dealings of the adversary with the erring disciple were thus overruled by God to the true end for which all sifting is employed, namely, the purification of that which is subjected to the process. The devil was seeking to bring to light the corruptions of Peter’s heart, in order to pour contempt on the truth in the person of one of its most eminent professors, and in order to destroy the Apostle himself by driving him to despair through the display of his sinfulness. This is his cunning and wicked design in all the temptations with which he is allowed to vex the children of men. But the omnipotent grace of Him who is stronger than the strong is ever bringing good out of evil, and even Satan, in His mighty hand, becomes only like a blundering slave to sift the wheat, that is thus, as by a final process, prepared for the Master’s use!
The Palm-Tree
What would Palestine and the East generally be without the date palm? It supplies so many needs, not only as a food, but on account of the many other uses to which its products can be put.
Because of its wonderful tap-root, reaching down to the hidden source of moisture, the Arabs say of it that it “plunges its foot into water and its head into the fire of heaven.” Thus the righteous are compared to the palm-tree.
“The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree” (Ps 92.12).
It is a desert tree, and the righteous man is like the palm-tree; he can grow in this world’s wilderness so long as his soul is constantly refreshed from the fountain of God’s grace.
Jericho, the city of palm-trees, was in the days of our Lord surrounded by an immense grove of palm-trees seven miles in depth, and must have presented a very beautiful setting to the city which had been the city of the curse, but became the city of blessing at least to blind Bartimaeus, who sat by the wayside begging (see the later illustration).
Cutting as a Mark of Grief
often to be witnessed in public, is a terrible practice of the Derweeshes, or fanatical Mohammedan devotees, and it has evidently, like all other practices of Palestine, come down from ancient times. They use two instruments for this. One is a small dart, or spear, which they drive into their bodies. Sometimes they may be seen stuck all over with these as they walk about in procession. The other is the sword. When worked up to the highest pitch of frenzy a Derweesh will cover himself with a sheet, and, seizing his sword, will slash his forehead till the blood gushes forth, a hideous spectacle, especially when, as is sometimes the case, a dozen men may be seen doing it at the same time! These men are evidently the modern descendants and representatives of those priests of Baal, who in anguish and despair, when no answer came from their idol-god, “cut themselves after their manner ... till the blood gushed out upon them” (1 Kings 18.28). In our translation a most unfortunate, mistake is made here. It is said, they cut themselves “with knives and lancets.” But the Hebrew words are hherev and roamahh. Hherev, rendered in our version “knife,” is in almost every case, and it occurs nearly four hundred times in the Old Testament, translated “sword,” and only bears a different meaning in two passages, where it is used in a highly figurative sense. The word roamahh is, undoubtedly, in each of the other fourteen passages where it is found, “dart” or “javelin.” Observe, the moment we render the passage rightly, which it appears to have seemed too bold to our translators to do, we have a perfect and lifelike resemblance in all their details to the horrid practices of the modern Derweesh! In this, and in other particulars, the rites and ceremonies of Baal-worship have been embodied in, and handed down by, the present religious systems of Palestine. Many who now thus “cut themselves after their manner with swords and darts,” do so under a deep sense of sin, and the consciousness that “without shedding of blood there is no remission,” and, like crowds to-day in Christendom, who think to atone for their guilt by self-inflicted tortures, they know not, alas! of the blood of Jesus, which “cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1.7), “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet 1.19), which brings us who were far off nigh (Eph 2.13), which makes our peace (Col 1.20), and redeems us to God (Rev 5.9), justifies us (Rom 5.9), sanctifies us (Heb 13.12), and gives us “confidence to enter into the Holy Place” (Heb 10.19). Happy are they who by repentance and faith in Jesus “have washed their robes” in the fountain of this atoning blood, “that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city,” “the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God” (Rev 7.14; 22.14; 21.2).
