FLORAL, BEAUTY.-SCENE OF SAMSON'S CAREER.

137 this part of Philistia. Here are two or three wells below the village which may have belonged to ancient Ekron, and that streamlet with a marshy bottom passes westwards to unite with Wady Sŭrâr towards Yebna. As usual with such brooks, it is so hidden by tall grass, weeds, and flowers that one is floundering in its oozy bed ere he is aware of it.

The season is too far advanced, I suppose, to see this part of the land in its greatest floral beauty, yet our pathway is garnished with many flowers. Along the brook are tall daisies, flaming gladiolus, crimson iris, variegated lilies, gay oleanders, wild roses, geraniums of various shades, and minor flowers in numbers numberless

White, and blue,

And red, and yellow,

Everywhere beneath our feet.

A month earlier Philistia's wide landscape would certainly have been much gayer than it is at present. But "he must climb high who far would see," and we have a steep ascent to overcome.

Having reached the hill-top, let us rest awhile, and study the topography round us.

The first thought suggested by the outlook is that this region cannot be called a plain at all. Rocky spurs from the eastern mountains stretch a long way westwards, and the general surface of the country is further diversified by high natural tells.

These tells, and breezy uplands, with intervening wadies, form the characteristic feature along the eastern border of Philistia. They rise from one to four hundred feet above the general level of the plain, and furnish picturesque and healthy situations for the villages. Amongst these are many sites whose names remind us. of Biblical narratives and incidents of great interest. We have before us the theatre of Samson's marvellous career; and not far from Beth-shemesh is Tibneh, the ancient Timnath, where he found his first Philistine wife, while somewhere on the rugged hills above it he encountered and slew that lion whose carcass, with "a swarm of bees and honey" in it, suggested the fatal riddle which his thirty wedding-companions could not solve, and hence arose the hatred. that culminated in so many disasters and tragedies. It was in the

fields below Timnath that Samson turned loose the three hundred foxes with firebrands attached to their tails, which "burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives." To revenge this ruinous conflagration "the Philistines came up, and burnt" his wife "and her father with fire;" and then followed those other bloody conflicts recorded in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters of Judges. A little farther south are Shochoh, where the Philistines were gathered for the campaign in which Goliath was slain; and Azekah, to which place Joshua pursued the Amorites after the battle for the relief of Gibeon; and the valley of Elah, where David fought with Goliath of Gath, and slew him. There are also other historic sites round about us, more than we have time at present to mention.

The Biblical narratives of intermarriages, such as Samson's and similar incidents, suggest a topic which has often occurred to my mind. The Hebrews, the Philistines, and the Canaanites appear to have been strangely intermingled for many generations, while, from the account of the conquest of the country in Joshua, one would naturally conclude that nearly the entire heathen population had been exterminated, or at least subdued. The whole land was actually divided by lot between the various tribes, and yet all these places about which we have been talking, and others also, like Gezer and Jerusalem itself, in the very heart of the country, continued in possession of the original inhabitants. The Jebusites held Jerusalem until the reign of David, and Gezer continued to be an independent city of the Canaanites down to the time of Solomon, six hundred years after the Conquest. During these sixteen or eighteen generations there must surely have been long periods of peace and friendly intercourse between the different nationalities.

No doubt; and many incidents in the history of those times necessarily imply this. Amongst them were these very marriages of Samson into Philistine families. Nor were these the only instances of such unions. There was, in fact, an obstinate disposition amongst the Jews to contract heathen marriages. The wisest and best of their kings set the example, and the people were ever ready to imitate them. The zealous Nehemiah bitterly complains of this evil custom: "In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives

INHABITANTS NOT EXTERMINATED.

139

of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: and their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair."" We may therefore conclude that, in matters of less importance than mixed marriages, there was much friendly intercourse between the Hebrews and the Canaanites who still lingered in their ancient cities.

May we not also fairly infer from these and other similar facts that the conquest by Joshua was far less fatal to the inhabitants of the country than the narratives seem to imply? For example, Joshua slew the King of Gezer, but he did not capture the city or destroy the people. The same was true of Jerusalem and her king, and of many other places.

Biblical history should, no doubt, be interpreted by the light of such facts, and universal and sweeping formulas are to be qualified and toned down to accord therewith. Great numbers of the people would certainly flee to those unconquered cities, and to others along the seaboard, where they could find refuge from Joshua's devouring sword. When the wars ceased, they were al lowed to return and rebuild their desolated homes. This has been confirmed by what has repeatedly occurred in this country since, and even down to our own time. I have seen Lebanon laid waste by three civil wars. In large districts every village was sacked, every house burned, and yet the number of people actually killed was surprisingly small. This is easily explained: by a few hours' rapid flight the inhabitants reached places of safety in the cities along the coast, or in districts beyond the limits of the war. At such times I have traversed large regions utterly depopulated; yet, when peace had been made, the people soon came back, the villages were rebuilt, and the mingled population, so recently at war, again resided side by side, though the enmity between the parties was scarcely less bitter than was that between the Hebrews and the Canaanites. Something like this occurred, I hope, in the time of Joshua; for it would greatly relieve the horrors of a picture that would otherwise be only too dark and distressing.

1 Neh. xiii. 23-25.

66

Some such condition of things was evidently foreshadowed in the original grant of the country to the Hebrews, for Moses says, The Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest not consume them at once." But the reason assigned for this, both in Exodus' and in Deuteronomy,' reads strangely in our day: "Lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee." How could this small country be called desolate with two millions of Hebrews dwelling in it, or whence the danger from wild beasts in the presence of such a dense population?

Subsequent history, however, shows that there were large districts uninhabited and infested with the wild beasts of the field. A young lion roared against Samson even in the vineyards of Timnath, and on the mountains above it David slew both a lion and a bear that attacked his flock. These fierce animals were the terror of the shepherd and the traveller in this country, as they still are in Southern Africa and the jungles of India. Gunpowder has exterminated them in Palestine, but they must have been numerous in ancient days, for the Biblical writers were intimately and accurately acquainted with their appearance and habits.

We must now descend from this sunny outlook, and continue our ride westwards across the plain to Yebna.

My thoughts have often followed Philip and the eunuch in their ride across this plain of Philistia, and I have wished to know what sort of country they passed through.

If the eunuch came down Wady 'Aly from Jerusalem, he would follow the road from Lâtrôn southwards, and that is now regarded as the easiest and safest route. If he came by Wady Sŭrâr, entering the plain near Beth-shemesh, he would cross it farther south; and if he descended by Eluetheropolis, his route would be still nearer the southern desert. The tradition that the baptism took place at 'Ain edh Dhirweh, on the road to Hebron, implies that the eunuch was returning home by that more southern route. Another question is whether Philip set out from Samaria or from Jerusalem; most probably from Samaria, as I think, for he appears to have been in that city when he received the command to go. He would 3 Acts viii. 5, and 25-39.

1 Exod. xxiii. 29, 30.

2 Deut. vii. 22.

PHILIP AND THE EUNUCH.-SIROCCO.

then have met the chariot somewhere south-west of Lâtrôn.

141 There

is a stream of water, called Marûba, deep enough in some places, even in June, to satisfy the utmost wishes of our Baptist friends. This Marûba is merely a local name for that part of the great Wady Sărâr, given to it on account of copious fountains which supply it with water during summer. I know of no brook on the road from Beth-shemesh to Gaza, but there may be one. Dr. Robinson found water in the wady below Tell el Hasy, which is midway between Beit Jibrîn and Gaza, and on the direct line between them. This route would lead them near, if not quite into, the desert. The same, however, might have been true of either of the routes out in the centre of the plain as it is at this day. Some, perhaps most people, suppose that it was Gaza which was desert, and not the country through which the road passed; and the Greek is as indefinite as the English. But Philip did not go to that city, neither was it desert or deserted at the time when the angel commanded him to take this excursion; nor do I believe it has ever been an eremos— desert-since the earliest days of history. It has often been sacked, plundered, and sometimes burned, and it suffered one of these reverses about thirty years after the journey of Philip; but these Oriental cities spring up from their ashes, like the phoenix, with wonderful rapidity; and I cannot suppose that Gaza itself could, with any propriety, be called desert either then or at any other time from that day to this.

That Philip was found at Azotus, which is Ashdod, after the baptism of the eunuch, seems to imply that it took place not far from that city, which is rather against the idea that they followed the road from Beit Jibrîn to Gaza, since that would carry them many miles south of Ashdod.

These filmy apologies for clouds which lounge about the sky seem to act rather as condensers to concentrate the heat than as a cooling shadow, and there is something extremely oppressive in this hot atmosphere.

We have two kinds of sirocco, one accompanied with vehement wind, which fills the air with dust and fine sand. I have often seen the whole heavens veiled in gloom with this sort of sand-cloud, through which the sun, shorn of his beams, looked like a globe of