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PEEPS INTO PALESTINE
Part III
Further Peeps into Palestine
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Come and spend an hour with me in Palestine. Let me spirit you away to the Holy Land without any trouble or expense, and even more speedily and comfortably than it could be done, with all their experience, by Messrs Cook and Sons.
“What will it cost?” you say. Well it will only cost you the price of this little book. But do not despise it on that account, for it has cost me something like 30,000 pennies to provide you with the entertainment.
There, sit down, fix your eyes on this book, and close them to all around, and wait for the waving of the literary magician’s wand. It is growing warm and still warmer, nay, now positively hot — hotter perhaps than you have ever felt out of doors before.
But don’t mind; it is a dry heat, very dry, and therefore soothing and exhilarating to the nerves, and besides there is an unspeakable softness and lightness in the air. A glorious odour as of countless delicate perfumes seems to rise up from the ground. It is not thyme, nor marjory, nor rosemary, nor lavender, nor sage, nor mint, nor balm, nor sweet basil, nor rue, but, as it were, all of them in one. With you now, as with Jacob of old, “the smell” of your “raiment” is becoming “like that of a field which Jehovah has blessed” (Gen 27.27).
I beg your pardon? Oh, you are saying the sun seems as if it would beat through your closed lids, and you feel you must open them. Well, why not? Yes, open them wide and look round, for you are in Palestine now. You are well mounted on a gentle, clever, powerful Arab steed, and I am on another by your side. My horse is aseal, that is, “noble,” or “thorough bred,” gentle as a lamb, fleet as a greyhound, sure-footed as a goat, and strong as a lion! He comes from a famous family at Gaza, so you must not mind if yours cannot always keep pace with him. But you need not fear that we shall leave you, for I am to be your faithful dragoman, your guide and interpreter.
We are on the mountains of Judah, and that perfume of nature’s incense is rising up from the fragrant and countless members of the wholesome thyme, or Labiatae, family that abound on these herb-scented hills. Their rich, warm odours are crushed out, as we ride along, under our horses’ feet. It is afternoon on a day towards the end of May. We are not far from Jerusalem itself, and therefore are at the fine height, on these central mountains, of over 2,000 feet.
You don’t seem as if you could distinguish the scenery very plainly, but no one can at first, or indeed for many months after they arrive, in this glare of the sun. The exquisite brightness of light and the delicate neutral tints, peculiar to views in the Holy Land during the hot season, account for this. You will, however, be able to see better in an hour’s time.
Fellahhah, or Peasant Woman
But you can see this woman who stands by the way, who is a fellahhah, or peasant, one of those who live in the unwalled villages and till the soil. These are “the people of the land” (Gen 42.6; Exod 5.5; 2 Kings 15.5, 21.24, 25.3; Jer 1.18), “the common people” (Lev 4.27, Jer 26.23, Mark 12.37), of the Bible, and they are, and must always have been, in Eastern countries, the bulk of the population, and probably for the most part as uneducated, despised, and downtrodden as they are to-day. Our Lord, His brothers and sisters and disciples, all belonged to this class; and Mary, “the mother of Jesus,” must have been just such a woman as this. That white sheet-like shawl, made of calico, over her head, which hangs down her back at great length, is her veil. You will have noticed as we came up to her that she took one end of this white sheet, or veil, and held it over her mouth. This is the usual mode amongst the fellahhah, or village women, of “veiling” when they meet a strange man.
Veiling
The Bible often alludes to this “veiling.” We read, “Rebekah took a veil and covered herself” (Gen 24.65), though no doubt she covered her whole face with it on meeting Isaac, for a bride must not be seen by the bridegroom till after the wedding. “Tamar covered herself with a veil” (Gen 38.14). Ruth was told by Boaz, “Bring the veil that thou hast upon thee” (Ruth 3.12), and the fellahhah to this day will bring home the corn she has gleaned, and other produce, bound up in her veil. The towns-women veil much more closely than the country women, covering the whole face. The idea that women ought to be veiled is universal throughout Bible lands. The Apostle Paul, strongly insisting as he always does on the modesty and sobriety that should mark the dress of a believing woman, calls the veil “[a sign] of authority on her head” (1 Cor 11.10), that is, of her husband’s “authority” over her. He thus speaks in the most natural manner of every woman as if she were married, for in the East every woman must be married after a certain age. If she is handsome, or well formed, or rich, or noble, she will be married in her own rank, or even in a rank above her own; but if she is ill-favoured or poor, she will be married to a man below her in station. But “given in marriage” she must be, as soon after the age of twelve as possible. The Apostle Paul says that women during divine service, “praying or prophesying,” should be veiled, “because of the angels,” or “ministers,” who would in those days have been much scandalised and disconcerted by seeing a congregation of unveiled women, just as, in purely Eastern spots, would be the case with an Oriental “minister” to-day!
Clouds
It is like this every day here from the 1st of May to 31st of October. From seven or eight o’clock in the morning till five to six o’clock in the afternoon there is not a drop of rain, and never a cloud between earth and sun. Every day at about one o’clock pm if an east wind is not blowing, which fortunately it seldom does except for a fortnight on and off in May and October, a delightfully cool breeze, laden with slight moisture, such as we are now enjoying, sets in from the great sea westward, the Mediterranean Sea, which lies along the west of Palestine. If you want to realise Bible stories you must think of such unbroken fine weather for some six or seven months running every year! This accounts for the allusions to “clouds” in the Bible as a strange and wonderful sight; for from 1st of May to 31st of October they are as rare in the Holy Land as they are common in England. The very thunderstorms come only in the winter in Palestine, whereas here they only come ordinarily in the summer. Hence the alarming and miraculous judgment when Samuel called down “thunder and rain in wheat harvest” (1 Sam 12.17-18), that is, from 1st of May to about the 15th of June, for harvest comes in Palestine before summer, not, as with us, after it in the autumn. Thus Jeremiah cries, with fine accuracy, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (Jer 8.20). The “cloud” that covered Israel with a glorious shade all day in their desert wanderings was a truly wonderful and miraculous sight in itself alone, as well as in its situation (Exod 13.21-22, Num 14.14 etc). When it is said, in the month of June, at our Blessed Lord’s ascension, “a cloud received Him out of their sight” (Acts 1.9), it was a much more remarkable event than many suppose. When, too, it is declared of His second advent, “He shall come with clouds” (Rev 1.7), “they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matt 24.30), it means, as you now see, under this unbroken cloudless sky, much more than it would mean in England.
The Strength of a Horse
I see you are looking at my beautiful Arab. I bought him when I first came to Jerusalem in 1870, for twelve Napoleons, or about £9! He came when quite young as a present to the Pasha of Jerusalem, brought with many others, as is so often the case, at the Easter festival, and I bought him from a sais, or “groom,” who was sent out to sell him in the streets to the first purchaser as soon as the pilgrims had left. He was the most beautiful colt I had ever seen, and when I bought him I had to break him in. He proved in many ways invaluable, and I grew very fond of him, and he of me. There is a stone staircase in Jerusalem, steep, narrow, and slippery, with a right-angled turn in the centre. Yet my clever and sure-footed Arab used to run down that staircase of glassy, polished stone, with his master on his back, quicker than you could! Once I was at Joppa, and leaving Miss Walker Arnott’s luncheon-table at 1.30 pm, I started to ride to the Holy City. All across the fifteen miles over the plain of Sharon we came at a hand-gallop, and then began to enter the low foot-hills, and afterwards the mountains of Judah. Here the ascent is steep, rising to a height of 2,500 feet, and in that day (1871) the road was in parts little better than a goat track throughout the three mountain passes that we had to traverse. Yet on and on my Arab sped, up hill and down, till I was so exhausted I could do little more than sit on his back and let him go as he liked. Almost at the end of this, the most remarkable ride I have ever taken, or ever expect to take, I met my wife coming out of the city for her evening constitutional on her ass — ladies constantly ride asses here, and very fine, powerful, high-spirited, pleasant-paced animals they are. At this moment we came in sight of the Holy City, and my noble Arab took the bit in his mouth, and, in spite of all my attempts to pull him up, fairly bolted! I reached Jerusalem by 5.20 pm, having ridden the forty miles in about 3 hours and 50 minutes! The Chancellor attached to the French Consulate had at that time a very valuable Russian horse, and, when he heard of this feat of my Arab, said that his horse should do the same. So one bright moonlight night he started from Jerusalem. The moon shines so strongly in this country that, when it is at the full, you can sit on the housetop and read a book by its light. Well, he managed, mind you, going all the way down hill, and in the delightful cool of night instead of, as in my case, in the hottest part of the day, to reach Joppa in four hours, but as he entered the gate his fine horse fell dead under him! My thorough-bred Arab went into the stable for a week, and in no way suffered. This is the difference between these much-enduring, glorious Arab horses and most others. Well might the Psalmist speak of “the strength of a horse” (Ps 147.10), and tell us “the horse is a vain thing for safety; neither shall he deliver any by his great strength” (Ps 33.17), though very naturally “some trust ... in horses” (Ps 20.7), and the Almighty Himself asks of impotent man, “Hast thou given the horse strength?” (Job 39.19) and it was in this vain confidence that rebellious Israel cried, “We will flee upon horses... We will ride on the swift” (Isa 30.16). How graphic and accurate these allusions are in light of my story!
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Barley and Crushed Straw
Whilst speaking of horses let me tell you that we do not feed ours in Palestine on oats and chopped hay, but on barley and crushed straw, and this was the very fodder with which Solomon’s grooms fed his horses 3,000 years ago, “Barley and crushed straw for the horses” (1 Kings 4.28).
Teben is the technical name to this day for such “crushed straw,” which is all broken into tiny pieces and crushed in every part by its being trodden down under the feet of oxen on the open-air rock threshing-floor. (For a full account of this with all its varied Scripture allusions, see my Palestine Explored, fourth edition, J Nisbet and Co, 3s 6d, giving a very great number of Biblical discoveries throwing light on the Bible.) It is the very same word in a Hebrew form, Teven, which we have here, and in all the places in our Authorised Version of the Bible where the word “straw” occurs. This crushing of dry fodder is a much more wholesome and palatable way of preparing it than our mode of cutting.
The Burial of an Ass
See how our horses start and sniff. It is that dreadful stench which has just saluted our nostrils. This is a land of the strongest odours, both good and bad. The fearful smell now comes from the carcase of some beast which has been left as usual to rot where it fell by the side of the road, if the beasts and birds of prey do not devour it first. Ah! there it lies just in front of us, an ass that has fallen under its two heavy burdens of small building-stones. The stones are left as usual lying unremoved in the middle of the road, where they have been upset. This is the allusion of Jeremiah when he declared of the violent death that should overtake the wicked Jehoiakim, “He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem” (Jer 22.19).
The Eagles Gathered Together
You see those huge, hideous birds now flying away at our approach: they are bald-headed vultures, and, together with the rest of the vulture and eagle tribe, are the “fowls,” or “fowls of heaven,” of our Bible. This hideous feast at which we have disturbed them explains the allusion in David’s words to the Philistine, “I will give thy flesh to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field” (1 Sam 17.44; see also Gen 15.11; 1 Kings 14.11, 16.4, 21.24), and many a similar one besides (Isa 46.11,; Jer 7.33, 16.4; Ezek 29.5, 39.4). To say, “Thy carcase shall be meat to all the fowls of the air” (Deut 28.26), or to say, “The eye that mocketh at father or mother the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it” (Prov 30.17), is to declare that a man shall come to a violent end. All day these huge birds, from the bustard-vulture up to the mighty lammergeier, through no less than forty-three different species of birds of prey found by Canon Tristram in the Holy Land, keep far up in the air out of sight. They never attack by night, but any, hour after sunrise “where the carcase is, there will the eagles [or vultures] be gathered together” (Matt 24.28). The reason why they do not seek their prey after dark is because they find it by sight, and not by scent. They have a wonderful power of distant vision. In accurate reference to this we read in Job, “There is a path which no bird of prey [Hebrew, ’ayit] knows, and which the vulture’s eye has not seen” (Job 28.7).
Yet says Canon Tristram, “The vulture can detect the path of a wounded deer from a height where it can itself be descried by no human eye. The process is probably this: The griffon-vulture, who first detects the quarry, descends from his elevation at once. Another, sweeping the horizon at a still greater distance, observes his neighbour’s movements and follows his course. A third, still further removed, follows the flight of the second; he is traced by another, and thus a perpetual succession is kept up, so long as a morsel of flesh remains over which to consort. Thus, on great battlefields, and during sieges, as at that of Sebastopol, immense numbers of vultures congregated in a few hours, where the bird was comparatively scarce before. During the Crimean War, the whole race from the Caucacus and Asia Minor seemed to have collected to enjoy so unwonted an abundance. The Arabs of North Africa declare that at that time very few niss’r (vultures) were seen in their accustomed haunts, and believe that they were all gathered, even from the Atlas, to feed on Russian horses” (Natural History of the Bible, Canon Tristram, pp 169, 170).
What a vivid light this throws on the scene of the tremendous final battle at Armageddon, where “an angel standing in the sun,” cries with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls (vultures) that fly in the midst of heaven, “Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them” (Rev 19.17-18).
It is curious to observe that none of these numerous birds of prey will settle on a green tree, “if a dead stump or bare pole is in the neighbourhood; and the fowlers, when wishing to obtain hawks, take advantage of this habit by fixing their traps on the top of a dead tree, or by erecting a pole with a trap on the top of it, when it is certain to be selected by the first falcon in want of a perch.”
In striking allusion to this, and in keeping with the perfect accuracy of the Bible wherever it refers to matters of natural history, God declares of the hosts of Sennacherib, He will “take away and cut down the branches,” and that these dead cut-down boughs “shall be left together to the birds of prey [Hebrew, ’ayit] ... and the birds of prey shall summer upon them” (Isa 18.5-6).
Bearing a Water-Pot
Here, in this woman coming along with her huge red earthenware pitcher balanced gracefully upon her head, you see a truly characteristic Palestine evening picture at “the time that women go out to draw water” (isa 18.5-6). The fetching of water, which has constantly to be brought a distance of from a quarter of a mile to a mile from the spring to the village, falls to the women. It is very heavy work. A powerful friend of mine once saw a woman trying to lift her water-pot when it was full, and, contrary to the stringent etiquette of the East, offered to help her; but he said, “I confess with shame, I could not lift the pot a foot from the ground. Another woman came up, and the two between them easily raised it, and placed it on her head, and she bore it off with ease.” It is this carrying such a weight on the head that gives the native women, as you will observe, such fine figures and such a graceful carriage.
This work is entirely confined to the women. The men call it shooghal niswan, “woman’s affairs,” and would scorn to take any part in it. Hence you will observe the remarkable character of that sign which Jesus gave His disciples by which they should know where to prepare the Passover, “there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water; follow him” (Mark 14.12-16; Luke 22.7-13). It might seem to you that this was likely to be too common an occurrence to form any certain or striking sign; but, so far from this, it was a truly remarkable, and altogether exceptional thing. Probably this was the only man in the city that day bearing a water-pot; and it is difficult to understand how he had come to do such work!
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“Give Me to Drink”
As there is never any wheel, rope, bucket, or other apparatus kept at the well mouth with which to draw water, these women carry with them, if “the well is deep,” a little matara, or hard leather bucket, and a rope. There would have been no point or propriety, but for this, in our Blessed Lord’s addressing to the strange Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well the words, “Give me to drink” (John 4.7). This piteous appeal of a weary man, in the burning heat of Syrian high noon, was perhaps the only justification or opportunity our Saviour could have found for entering into conversation with a strange woman. So contrary to all the etiquette of the East is such an action, that, when His disciples came back from buying food, we read that “they marvelled that he was speaking with a woman;” not “the woman,” as in our Authorised Version (John 4.27. See Revised Version.) Christ’s great tact, unconventional earnestness, and burning love for souls, all come out very strikingly when this story in John 4 is read in the light of Palestine.
Camels
Take care of this string of camels coming along, led by their Bedaween owners. They give no warning with their noiseless tread, and their huge loads projecting out each side could easily sweep you off your horse. They are led by Bedaween Arabs, the desert-dwelling descendants of Ishmael, who are the principal breeders and owners of camels; and it was so in the earliest times. Abraham and Jacob, who lived as tent-dwellers, like the Bedaween, had camels (Gen 12.16, 24.19, 44, 30.43). The Ishmaelites trading to Egypt “came with their camels” (Gen 37.25). The Midianites, also Badaween, invaded Palestine, “they and their camels without number” (Judg 6.5, 7.12). The tent-dwelling Job owned 3,000 camels when we first hear of him; but he had twice as many, a regular desert millionaire, when Jehovah turned his captivity (Job 1.3, 42.12). So, again, when Reuben made war with the Hagarites, the Bedaween descendants of Hagar, they took of their cattle 50,000 camels (1 Chron 5.21). Over David’s camels, that monarch, himself an experienced herdsman, very naturally set “Obil the Ishmaelite” (1 Chron 27.30).
When our Lord uses the proverbial expression of the hypocritical Pharisees that they “strain at a gnat and swallow a camel” (Matt 23.24), He employs the largest animal seen in Palestine by way of the figure of hyperbole, or exaggeration, just as He does when He says it is “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man [that is, as He explains in Mark 10.24, ’those that trust in riches’] to enter into the kingdom of Heaven” (Matt 19.24; Mark 10.25; Luke 18.25). These old needles doubtless were bone needles, such as I have dug up in my grounds outside Jerusalem, with much larger eyes than our needles, but there is not the slightest ground for supposing that the “needle’s eye” was the name of any gate, for no gate now bears that name, and to think of any such gate is to weaken and almost to destroy the powerful figure of impossibility our Lord is so graphically giving.
These camels are very wonderful and interesting animals. They have been known to travel 400 miles in four days, and 630 miles in five days, and one, according to Burkhardt, could go 200 miles in twenty-four hours. They feed upon their own humps, or “bunches,” as Isaiah calls them (Isa 30.6), those living at ease having large fat humps, and those working hard very small ones. Nero had chariots driven by camels, and so, Isaiah tells us, had the King of Babylon (Isa 21.7-9).
The bellowing of a party of camels having their loads put on is a frightful noise, and they look strange and weird, as they kneel on the ground swaying and stretching around their long necks like so many boa constrictors.
In the month of February they often become “mad as a March hare.”
The Arabs call it taish. “At such times,” says Dr Jessup, “they often bite men severely. In Hums, one bit the whole top of a man’s head off, and in Tripoli another bit a man’s hand off. I once saw a camel taish in Beyrout, and he was driving the whole town before him. Wherever he came, with his tongue hanging down and a foaming froth pouring from his mouth, as he growled and bellowed through the streets, the people would leave their shops and stools and run in dismay. It was a frightful sight. I was riding down town, and on seeing the crowd and the camel coming towards me I put spurs to my horse and rode home. ... The camel is very sure-footed, but cannot travel on muddy and slippery roads. The Arabs say,‘The camel never falls, but if he falls he never gets up again.’ ... The Arabs say that a man once asked a camel, ‘What makes your neck so crooked?’ The camel answered, ‘My neck, why do you ask about my neck? Is there anything else straight about me that led you to notice my neck?’ This has a meaning, which is, that when a man’s habits are all bad there is no use in talking about one of them."
The Bedaween live largely on camel’s milk, and its flesh, in some parts near the desert, is a common article in the market, and when from young camel-colts, killed because they have broken their legs, the meat is as delicious as a beefsteak. “The Arab name for camel is jemel, which means ‘beauty.’ They call him so because there is no beauty in him. You will read in books that the camel is ‘the ship of the desert.’ He is very much like a ship as he carries a heavy cargo over the ocean-like plains and buraries, or ‘wilds,’ of the Syrian and Arabian deserts. He is also like a ship in making people sea-sick who ride on his back, and because he has a strong odour of tar and pitch, being painted over with those materials every year like the hold of a ship, which sometimes you can perceive at a long distance.”
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Sandals
If you look at the dress of these Bedaween you will see that they have not the rude red leather shoe turned up with a pointed toe, which is worn mostly by the villagers, but a sandal. This consists of a stout sole of leather under the foot, which is bound to it by a thong, or string of hide, which passes round between the ankle and the heel, and is then brought over the top of the foot and between the great toe and the second toe, and fastened to the sole by a leather button. The better to keep it in position, there are two straps on each side of the sole through which the leather thong is passed. Here, no doubt, in this simple contrivance we have the “sandal” of the Bible, often spoken of in our version as “the shoe.” The word “sandals” (sandalia) occurs in that passage of Mark where our Lord told the twelve to go out in the simplest possible fashion, living and dressing like the working classes, to whom He chiefly sent them. “He commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip [the usual leather kid-skin bag of Palestine peasants], no bread, no copper in their purse: but be shed with sandals; and nor put on two shirts [or tunics]” (Mark 6.8-9). When the angel appeared to Peter in prison, he said, “Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals” (Acts 12.8). In reference to this word of the angel, it should be remembered that throughout these Bible lands neither men nor women undress at night or use any kind of night-clothes. They simply unloose the girdle and lay down in the one garment, the tunic, or loose cotton shirt, with wide sleeves, reaching down to their ankles, which they wear during the day. With men it is white, and with women dyed indigo blue. The allusions in the Old Testament, when Abraham says that from the King of Sodom he would “not take from a thread to a shoe’s latchet;” and when we are told of the man who refused to “raise up seed to his brother,” that “his brother’s wife shall loose his shoe;” and, in the New Testament, where John the Baptist says of Christ that He is one “the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose” (Mark 1.7; Luke 3.16), are in each case to this thong, or string-like leather lace, or latchet, of the sandal.
Pharisees at Prayer
What is that man doing? Why, he is at prayer. It is one of the five Moslem hours of prayer which occur each day. If we were in a town we should see the Mueddin on the high gallery of some mosque minaret, and hear their musical call to engage in acts of devotion. When that is heard, no matter where they may be, on the housetop or in the shop, the market-place or the street, men who want to appear pious in the eyes of their fellow-men begin, I will not say to pray, but to say their prayers. How unreal it is you may gather from the way they keep their eyes open and look about them, and evidently pay attention to what is going on around. Indeed, if one mukary, or mule-driver, wants to go on, and the other wants to stop to perform his devotions, you will often hear him pouring out terrible oaths against his companion, his father, and friends! What a vivid Oriental illustration of the words of James, “The tongue can no man tame ... therewith bless we God even the Father, and therewith curse we men. ... Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing” (James 3.8-10). While on this subject it is awful to observe how the natives swear. Truly of “the wicked,” in Syria, it may be said that “his mouth is full of cursing” (Ps 10.7); that he has “loved cursing” (Ps 109.17); that he has "clothed himself with cursing like as with a garment” (Ps 109.18). In Palestine the youngest children swear with awful fluency on the slightest provocation, and are taught and encouraged by their parents, servants, and slaves to do so as a sign of manliness. The name of God is Allah, and “O God” is Yallah, and this last is used at all times and on all occasions, and is the common cry by which the donkey-boys and mule-drivers urge on their animals, in which, alas! they are too often ignorantly imitated by European travellers! The most awful oath is Wullah, and the most common oath is yilan abook, “Curse your father.”
A truly peculiar feature of Eastern swearing is the aggravating way in which they will curse not you, but your father or other male ancestors. Says Dr Jessup, “Sometimes a boy will say to another, yilan abook, ’curse your father;’ and another will answer, wajiddak, ’and your grandfather,’ and others they will call back and forth like cats and dogs. I saw a Moslem boy near my house standing by the corner to shield himself from the stones another boy was throwing, and shouting wa jid, jid, jid, jid, jidak, ’and your great, great, great, great grandfathers,’ and away went the other boy, shouting as he ran ’and your great, great, great, great, gr-e-at,’ and I heard no more. ... Sometimes a donkey-driver will get out of patience with his long-eared beast. The donkey will lie down with his load in a deep mudhole, or among the sharp rocks. For a time the man will kick and strike him, and throw stones at him, and finally, when nothing else succeeds, he will stand back, with his eyes glaring, and his fist raised in the air, and scream out ’May Allah curse the beard of your grandfather!’ I believe that the donkey always gets up after that, that is if the muleteer first takes off his load and then helps him by pulling stoutly at his tail.” This universal practice of cursing the parent or grandparent finds its most aggravating and violent form when the curse is directed against the mother instead of the father. Yet a man in a violent passion with his son will sometimes swear at him thus, though, in this senseless fashion, he is cursing his own wife, to whom he may be much attached. How life-like it is to find the violent and passionate King Saul falling into this insane practice in his rage against Jonathan, and addressing him as “Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman” (1 Sam 20.30).
Throughout Palestine we shall constantly be reminded that we are in a thirsty land by the presence of the Sakkah, or water-carrier, with his skin water-bottle flung across his shoulders, but we are soon reminded that water is a precious commodity, for as he passes along he shouts, “Ho, ye thirsty ones, come ye and drink,” as they did in the days of Isaiah, who ennobled the common street call by adding one essential difference to it, thus transforming it into a glorious Gospel invitation that has echoed down the centuries. The “living” water is given, not bought. The same emphasis is found in other familiar passages in the Scriptures (see John 7.37). The Sakkah sells you his by no means living water, but the water that the Lord Jesus offers to thirsty souls is too precious to be bought, it can only be received as a free gift, for it is “without money and without price.”
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Preparing the Way
You find this road bad? Well, I am not surprised to hear that. There is scarcely one good road throughout the length and breadth of Palestine. Travellers, as they manage to pass their horses with difficulty along the wretched highways, or choose some adjacent path over the open plain as far preferable to the road itself, often wonder whence come the huge rough stones, which so constantly obstruct the way. I was at a great loss~to account for the presence of these, until my attention was called, by Mr Schick, our able architect at Jerusalem, to the manner in which many of them are brought there. The camel, horse, and mule drivers, when they find the burdens they have arranged on the backs of their sumpter animals are not equally poised, instead of rearranging them, have a cruel and senseless custom of seizing any large stone which comes to hand, and placing it on that side where the weight is deficient. This stone in time jolts off, and is replaced by another, and often by a third and a fourth, and in any case at the journey’s end, or when the animals are unloaded, is left where it falls in the midst of the way. Besides this, in clearing the vineyards, gardens, and arable lands, stones are constantly thrown out on to the nearest road.
None of the highways, moreover, are at any time properly metalled, and in winter they suffer very severely from the tropical torrents of rain. Neither is there any adequate provision for keeping them in permanent order even if they were efficiently made. This condition of the highways causes very serious inconvenience in a land where every journey has to be made on horseback, or on foot. Matters were not so bad in the time of those master roadmakers, the Romans, but it is very doubtful whether the highways were ever in much better order under purely Jewish rulers. The whole character and institutions of the despotic East make against the proper preservation of works of this kind which benefit the community at large.
An intensely interesting papyrus has been found in Egypt, dating, it is supposed, about the fourteenth century before Christ, that is, as far back as the time of Israel under the Judges, probably the period of their oppression by Jabin, King of Canaan. It gives an account of the adventures of the first traveller in Palestine of whose complete tour we have any record. This gentleman was an Egyptian officer, called a Mohar, a man evidently of some importance, and he is represented as travelling in an iron chariot. His journey begins at Aleppo, and he visits a town near the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where a meeting has been arranged with other Mohars. Thence by the Jordan valley he travels to Bethshan and to Megiddo, which has been identified during the work of the survey of Western Palestine with the important ruin of Mujedda, and goes up its bik’ah, or “deep cleft between the hills.’) Next he goes to En-Gannin, Jenin, through the aimek, or broad plain, of Jezreel, and passing Dothan by the road along which the Midianites bore Joseph into Egypt, he crosses the pass, now called Wady Mussin, and descends into the plain of Sharon. After an enforced stay at Joppa, he returns by an inland road at the foot of the Judean hills to his own country. A reference to the graphic account of this ancient traveller will show how remarkably similar were the incidents of a journey in Palestine two thousand five hundred years ago to those of the present day. As long as the Mohar kept to the plains, which he appears to have done during the greater part of the way, he seems to have managed to proceed tolerably well; but no sooner do we find him on a mountain road, at the pass of Wady Mussin, even though that road appears to have been the long-established caravan route into Egypt, than he tells us he finds the way full of “rocks and rolling-stones, obstructed by hollies, prickly pear, aloes, and bushes called
jackal-shoes.” His horses take fright, the pole of his carriage becomes broken, and in a pitiable plight he manages with difficulty to reach Jaffa some twenty-five miles away on the plain (Records of the Past, vol 2, pp 107-116).
Even in the palmy days of Solomon, Josephus tells us as an instance of his extraordinary magnificence, that he “did not neglect the care of the ways, but he laid a causeway of black stone [most probably the hard, black basalt stone of the country] along the roads that led to Jerusalem, which was the royal city, both to render them easy for travellers, and to manifest mthe grandeur of his riches and government” (Antiquities of the Jews, book 8, chap 7, sec 4). From the mention of these roads in the immediate vicinity of the capital as a very remarkable affair, we may gather that the other roads were not in a very different state from that in which we find them now.
Yet, notwithstanding the almost impassable condition of the highways at ordinary times, I have repeatedly observed that on a few occasions for brief intervals they were carefully mended. These few occasions were those of the arrivals of some royal personages. As soon as it was known at Jerusalem that a king or prince of the blood was about to come through any of the adjacent parts of Palestine which lie within that pashalic, orders were forthwith issued to the people of the various towns and villages to put all the roads in order over which it was arranged he should pass. This was done as usual by means of enforced labour, as was probably the case in former times. I remember once having to ride from Jerusalem to Shechem (Nablous), a distance of forty miles, just before one of the Russian Grand-dukes was expected to come that way, and finding to my great surprise and comfort, that the road, generally in such a state as to make any by-path preferable, was now perfectly smooth and in order throughout. The stones had been gathered out, the broken-down embankments had been cast up, and the shelving and slippery ledges of rock on the brinks of precipices had been covered with a thin coat of earth.
Hence the proclamation in Isaiah —
“Pass ye, pass ye through the gates,
Prepare ye the way of the people;
Cast up, cast up the highway, clear away the stones,
Lift up a standard for the peoples.
Behold, Jehovah hath proclaimed unto the end of the world:
Say ye to the daughter of Zion,
Behold, thy salvation cometh!
Behold, his reward is with him,
And his recompense is before him” (Isa 62.10-11).
Here the coming of Christ is foretold, and the preparation for the Advent of Israel’s Divine King commanded, under the striking figure of the usual orders issued to make ready the highway for a royal procession. The Gentile nations are directed to pass out of the gates of their cities in order to remove all obstacles from His way, and to prepare the road of the Lord and make His paths straight, by repentance and faith — a repentance and faith specially evidenced by kindness towards His ancient people Israel. Residents in Jerusalem of late years have had several excellent opportunities of observing the prophet’s allusion, and have learned to look forward eagerly to the coming of some royal visitor, if for no other reason, on account of the great improvements immediately made in the roads upon which he is about to travel.
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A Weaned Child
Do you see this group of women that we are approaching, in their picturesque, wide-sleeved, dark indigo-blue chamees, or shirt, which is the one robe the peasant women ordinarily wear, bound round their waist by a red girdle. Whilst they are scrupulously careful to put the comer of their veil over their mouth as we draw near, you will see that they leave a great part of their person uncovered. Next to their remarkably fine erect figures, perhaps nothing strikes one more in the appearance of the lightly-clad peasant women of Palestine than their long pendant breasts. This feature may, I think, be partly accounted for by the great length of time during which they suckle their children. Infants are seldom, if ever, weaned amongst the fellahheen, or villagers, under two years of age. It is, however, no extraordinary thing for a mother to continue to give a “man-child” the breast till the end of his fourth or fifth year. Indeed, our Bethlehem nurse assured us that she had known the case of a favourite child whose mother had not weaned it until it was seven years of age! Girls would never be treated in this way, meeting as they do on all occasions with marked neglect. The native women believe that the longer a child is allowed to remain at the breast the stronger he grows. When, therefore, a boy appears one of great promise, or is a firstborn, or seems likely to be the only child, the mother, if it is possible, nurses him until he is four years of age.
These facts are really important as rendering intelligible the early history of little Samuel. Her child was granted to Hannah at a time when she was hopelessly barren, in answer to special prayer, and she had dedicated him before his birth to the Lord by a solemn vow, in which she declared she would “give him unto Jehovah all the days of his life.” When he was born Hannah determined that it would be lawful for her to keep him until he was weaned, and doubtless, like all women of Palestine at the present day, believed that the longer she could nurse him the stronger and better he would become. She, therefore, proposed to stay at home, and not accompany her husband on his yearly pilgrimage to Shiloh until the child was taken from the breast, and “then,” she said, “I will bring him, that he may appear before Jehovah, and abide there for ever.” This decision thoroughly approved itself to her affectionate husband. Elkanah said to her: “Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou have weaned him; only Jehovah establish His word. So the woman abode, and gave her son suck until she weaned him” (1 Sam 1.21-23). How many yearly festivals passed by before that event we are not told; but from what has been said above, we cannot doubt that, according to every usage and feeling of the East at the present day, little Samuel was not weaned until he was from three to five years of age, and therefore quite old enough to be left by himself with the aged high-priest, and to enter at once upon some childish service in the sanctuary. Doubtless when the infant Moses was so providentially restored to his mother, she kept him at the breast much as Hannah kept Samuel, if only that she might have her child under her own care as long as possible.
Everything, too, in the account in Genesis of the circumstances of Isaac’s weaning would seem to point to this remarkable child of promise as also having been nursed by his mother for several years (Gen 21.8-10). I have noticed with intense interest when reading that admirable work, The Approaching End of the Age, that the author calls attention to the fact that the four hundred years of affliction and bondage foretold as coming upon Abraham’s seed, starts from the time when Isaac was five years old. He adds: “To this day it is a matter of conjecture what the event was which marked that year, though there is little doubt that it was the casting out of the bond-woman and her son on the occasion of the mocking of the heir of promise by the natural seed. This mocking, or ’persecuting’ (Gal 4.29), is the first affliction of Abraham’s seed of which we have any record, and its result demonstrated that it was in Isaac the seed was to be called” (The Approaching End of the Age, by Dr H Grattan Guinness, second edition, p 478). These statements are no doubt correct, but they contain what at first sight appears to the Western reader a grave difficulty. The mocking of the promised seed took place at the feast when Isaac was weaned. That he should have been five years old on the day that he was weaned seems unaccountable to us, but constitutes no difficulty whatever in Palestine. It is in perfect keeping with the practice of the East at the present day. Under the circumstances of his being a remarkable, long waited for, and only child, it is rather to have been expected than otherwise, that Sarah’s son should have reached his fourth or fifth year before he was entirely taken from the breast. Thus it will be seen that Isaac at his weaning feast was not, as we might suppose, an unconscious infant, but old enough to feel resent, and complain to his mother of Ishmael’s persecuting and contemptuous conduct.
A similar explanation is necessary if we are to attach any distinct or literal meaning to the words of Isaiah —
“Whom doth he teach knowledge?
And whom doth he make to understand instruction?
Those weaned from the milk,
Those withdrawn from the breast” (Isa 28.9).
Children as soon as they are weaned amongst us could not “understand instruction,” but in Palestine weaning takes place at an age when they can begin to be taught knowledge. Almost all Eastern boys can both speak and understand what is spoken to them when first “withdrawn from the breast.” It is indeed a tender age at which to begin, but one that no wise parent will allow to pass by unimproved.
Again, our Blessed Lord’s quotation,
“Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise” (Matt 21.16, quoted from Ps 8.2, Septuagint version),
viewed thus, becomes capable of literal sense.
If we consider a comparison used by the Psalmist in this light, we shall see in it a new power and beauty. The words to which I allude, attributed in the heading of the Psalm to David, are those in which he declares —
“I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a child that is weaned by his mother,
My soul within me is even as a weaned child” (Ps 131.2).
The man after God’s own heart is speaking of his conscious humility. He has but just before declared that his heart is not haughty, neither has he exercised himself in great matters. In contrast to such proud bearing, his spirit, he tells us, is meek and gentle, like that of a young child of’ three years of age. To us the idea of a weaned child conveys only the thought of helpless and unintelligent infancy, and would, therefore, have no force in this connection. But, viewed in the above light, David’s words are not only full of significant meaning, but are no less than an expression of the same truth taught afterwards by David’s Lord, when He “called to Him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and said, ’Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven’” (Matt 18.2-4).
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The Thâr, or “Blood-Revenge”
Here comes an interesting fellahheen procession. A white flag is waving, pipes are being played, they are singing and rejoicing, and a man, almost naked, is dancing backward with exaggerated movements in honour of the occasion; just as David no doubt danced backward before the ark, “shamelessly uncovering himself” (as his worldly minded wife, Michal, put it), in honour of Jehovah (2 Sam 6.20). Hereby hangs a tale. When life has been taken in any of the frequent encounters amongst the Palestine fellahheen, a blood-feud arises, in which the nearest relative, as “avenger of blood,” is bound by the customary law of the land to take the slayer’s life. In some cases a blood-fine, deeyeh, is taken in place of life, which amounts to 4,000 piastres, or about £35, for a man, and half that amount for a woman. When this is not paid, and even in many cases when it is, their sense of honour requires the taking of a life for a life. The Thâr, or “blood-revenge,” is binding upon the relatives of the murdered person to the fifth degree of relationship. Hence fugitives are constantly to be found who are seeking to escape from avengers of blood, and in need of a refuge. This is only to be had now, in the absence of cities of refuge, by claiming the privilege of “sanctuary.” It may be done in three ways. First, by flying to a mosque (a Mohammedan place of worship), or to a Mukam (a hill shrine, the supposed tomb of some saint). Secondly, by escaping to the house of some neutral person, who rarely is known to refuse the protection and shelter of his roof in such a case, and who would be for ever disgraced if he did. The open door of such a house once passed is invariably respected, and many lives are saved in this way, the fugitive staying as the guest of the host he has thus taken by storm until such time as matters have been sufficiently settled to enable him to leave without risk.
There is, however, a third method of taking sanctuary, which in all probability existed like the others in ancient times. A man when run down may save himself at the very last by calling out, “I am the dahheel of [that is, one who has entered the dwelling of such an one, “mentioning the name of some person of power or tank. According to their custom, the protection of the person invoked is gained by thus merely calling upon his name. It is held to be as though the fugitive had succeeded in entering the tent or dwelling of the person he mentions. In such a case, if the avengers of blood refuse to listen to the appeal, and take the manslayer’s life, the person on whose name he has called is bound, by their code of honour, to take swift and summary vengeance. When they are in the act of killing him, the fugitive turns to someone who is present, and cries, [’Ana dahheel fulan, el amaneh andak.” — “I am the dahheel of such an one — the trust is with thee.” By these words the dying man commits to the one he addresses the sacred duty of informing the protector who was invoked of what has taken place, and of relating how the victim was slain in despite of the respect due to his name. One so addressed is bound by every principle of religion and honour, however much he may dislike doing so, to accept and carry out this trust. To neglect to carry out an amaneh, or “trust,” is in their estimation not only a deep disgrace, but an unpardonable sin. To call a man khayin el amaneh, “the breaker of a trust,” is to give him the vilest character that can be borne.
When tidings have been brought to the person whose name was invoked by the victim of the avengers of blood, he has the right of gathering together all his friends and allies to assist him in punishing the outrage, and establishing the honour of his name. With the customary cry, “Who is on my side? Who?” (2 Kings 9.32) he calls upon them to join their armed followers with his own men. He then marches to the place where his dahheel was slain, and has a right to take vengeance upon all who were concerned in killing him during three and one-third days, by putting to death all the men, and seizing all the property. For this act of summary vengeance no blood-revenge or blood-money can ever be claimed. When the three and one-third days are over a white flag is hoisted on a pole or spear by the relatives of the dahheel who was put to death, in honour of his protector. Any of the offenders who have escaped with their lives may now return in safety, and resume possession of whatever is left of their property.
There would appear to be several allusions to this mode of taking sanctuary in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Let Psalm 20 be read in this light. It is a prayer of the people for their king when he is in danger of his life. The Psalmist cries —
“The name of the God of Jacob defend thee.
* * * * *Some trust in chariots, and some in horses,
But we will make mention of the name of Jehovah our God” Ps 20, 1, 7).
And rejoicing by anticipation in the salvation that this Name will bring, he cries, in apparent allusion to the flag that is set up to the protector’s honour —
“We will rejoice in thy salvation,
And in the name of our God will we set up a banner” (Ps 20.5).
Again, in another Psalm of David, whose adventurous life of border warfare had doubtless led him to become very familiar with matters of sanctuary, there seems a further reference to the same custom —
“Save me, O God, by thy name,
And by thy might vindicate me.
* * * * *For strangers are risen up against me,
And oppressors seek after my life” (Ps 54.1,3).
Exulting in the power of Jehovah’s exalted name, and the certainty of His vindicating those who appeal to it, he adds —
“Behold, God is my helper,
* * * * *He will return the evil unto mine enemies;
In thy truth cut them off” (Ps 54.4, 5).
But still plainer is the allusion of the wise man, when, speaking of the Divine protection, he says —
“The name of Jehovah is a strong tower,
The righteous runneth into it, and is safe” (Prov 18.10).
Here the believer who honours God by publicly calling upon His Name, and by confessing his trust in the Most High as his defender, is represented as if he had fled into a strong place of refuge, where he finds safety from his foes. When Satan, like the avenger of blood, seeks our destruction, let us call upon the name of our great and compassionate Champion. The believing soul that in simple trust turns to the Lord Jesus and makes mention of His righteousness only; the soul that thus appeals to. Christ by confessing its own helplessness and danger, and by placing itself unreservedly under His protection, shall assuredly find the help of One who is mighty to save, and who never fails to vindicate the honour of His great Name.
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“Jerusalem the Golden”
Look! Look! Do you see yonder city? We have come in sight of Jerusalem, El Kuds, as they still delight to call it, “The Holy” ("The Holy City,” Neh 11.1; Isa 48.2; Matt 4.5 etc). We are approaching it from the west. Behind us the sun is now setting in Oriental splendour, and as it does so, it lights up the high and picturesque grey walls of the Holy City, the whitish houses, with their characteristic low dome-roofs, the handsome towers and minarets, with liquid gold. This effect, to be witnessed every evening, this wonderful transformation, is an exceedingly beautiful sight, and you must come out to a land of the sun like this to realise it. Surely this it was which led to the Holy Spirit’s glorious description of the “Heavenly Zion,” when at earth’s “eventide it shall be light” (Zech 14.7), and the “New Jerusalem” shall be seen “coming down from God out of Heaven.” “The city was pure gold, like unto glass” (Rev 21.18). How often have I gazed with delight on the wondrous scene! What gives all this splendour? Is it not the sun? What will give glory to the New Jerusalem? Is it not “the sun of Righteousness”? for “the Lamb is the light thereof” (Rev 21.23).
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