457 and the price for the whole work will be about was sought to conceal from the knowledge of his and which in all was of a 1 5 shillings. Even those who already possess the subjects, probability English edition will find the new work indis- mental character. The special interest of Hommel’s pensable, if they wish to be up to date; while article lies in his attempt to bring this into con- students who have not yet made acquaintance nexion with what the Book of Daniel relates of the with Jastrow may be confidently recommended lycanthropy of Nebuclzadnt’zzar. It is well known a is the circum- to procure the forthcoming volume as the authority that serious difhculty occasioned by on its subject. J. A. SELBIE. stance that in that book Belshazzar is called the son l1IarJ’mltcr, A bcrdecll. of Nebuchadnezzar, whereas there was no blood I relationship whatever between them. Nabonidos, on the other hand, was the father of Belshazzar, ~R.mon~ f6t (ptríobícá.fa. and Hommel seeks to show reason why in Dn 2-5 I we should read 7>2> (Nabonidos) for nY>7D2> The Book of Daniel. I (Nebuchadnezzar) everywhere except in 5 2. He PROFESSOR HontMEL contributes to the Tlaenl. finds a similar error of transcription in chap. 6, Darius into Literaturblatt (28th March last) a paper on ’The where he would change (t&dquo;i’n7) Date of the Book of Daniel, and the Lunacy of Gobryas (v~1’~1a). The bearing of all this upon the Nabonidos.’ The Annals of the latter monarch date of the Book of Daniel, especially if, with of the contain repeated notices (extending over five Hommel, one could be brought to accept years) of the absence of Nabonidos from Babylon Aramaic portions (chaps. 2-7) as part of an original and his sojourn in Te-ma-a (Tema), while his son work, and to look upon chaps. 8-12 as of ~Iacca- Bel-sar-usur (Belshazzar) with the nobles and the baean date, is of no little importance. But the troops was in the land of Akkad. Hommel argues present is not the place in which to examine the that this exile of the Babylonian king can have validity of his arguments. J. A. SELBIE. been due to nothing but some malady which it I ~ra~~~culte~~, ~1 ber dee~z. Jacob’s Route from Haran to Shechem. BY PROFESSOR S. R. DRIVER, D.D., LITT. D., OXFORD. OF none of the four places, Mizpah, Mahanaim, territory of Gad, and in a ‘ vale’ (Jos I32ï, Ps 606), Penuel, and Succoth, which Jacob is stated to -presumably, therefore, in the part of the Jordan have passed on this journey, has the name been valley through which the Jabbok flows into the preserved locally; and the identifications which Jordan, and which is very fertile. The following have been proposed are in consequence entirely synopsis will perhaps assist the reader to estimate conjectural. From such indications as are afforded the relative probability of the principal identifica- by the way in which the places are mentioned tions that have been hypothetically proposed :- either in this narrative or elsewhere, it may be inferred that Mi~pah was some elevated spot on the north-east of Gilead; that ~llaha~zai~n was within sight of the Jordan (Gn 3210; cf. 2 S 229 I8‘’3~’ [see 17 24]), near some ford of the Jabbok (3222), and also a city of Gad, bordering closely on Manasseh (Jos i 32g. 30 2138); that Penuel was close to the on than Suc- Jabbok (Gn 32~-sof.~ higher ground 1 A Saracenic castle : see photographs inMitth. u. Nachr. des Z.D.P.V., coth, and to the east or south-east (Jg 85.8, cf. v.11); I898, p. 55f. It stands on the top of a hill, and commands a particu- larly fine view of the entire Jordan valley, from the lake of Gennesareth and that Succoth was on the route between Penuel to the Dead Sea (Le Strange, in Scliumacher’s Across the Jordan, p. and Shechem, which would pass most naturally 286 f.). 2 ’The hills of so called from the metalliferous sand- over the ford little south of the gold,’ yellowish ed-Dlmiyeh (a point stone of which they are composed,—two conical hills, round which the at which the Jabbok enters the Jordan), in the Jabbok winds, about 6 miles east of Deir’ Allā, up the valley. Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com at MCMASTER UNIV LIBRARY on March 10, 2015 458 All these places, except Suleikhat, as well as the till it enters the Jordan valley, some 10 miles lower routes and fords mentioned in the following re- down ; the stream rushes along swiftly, at the marks, are shown on G. A. Smith’s large Topo- bottom of a deep chasm like a cmion, with very graphical ~lTap of Palestine. The reader will also lofty and precipitous banks,’ fringed by tall canes ’ be able to follow the argument with the help of and rushes, and with no road or passage along the Map of Gilead in the Ene. Bibl. ii. s.v., or either side, except, as it seems, rough paths through even with the shilling Map of Palestine in Murray’s the jungle, the best of which is a rocky and Classical Maps (both of which , indicate the ele- perilous bridle-path, on the face of the bluff on the vations by shadings). Suleikhat, according to north side, along which Professor Paine found Merrill’s description, is in the higher part of the himself frequently obliged to dismount (p. 489 f.). W. Suleikhat, 3 miles north of the W. ’Ajlun, and The real ancient thoroughfare in these parts from a mile east of the road through the Gh6r from west to east, says Professor Paine, is a well-marked Beisan to the south ; it would therefore in G. A. Roman road (not shown on G. A. Smith’s Map), Smith’s Map be in the second wady north of ~V. leading up from Deir ’Alld, past Shihan and ’Ajlun, a little below the figure ‘ 500.’ At the Mukhmah to ’Amman. Professor Paine’s state- spot indicated there are considerable ruins, stand- ments certainly produce upon the reader the im- ing some 300 ft. above the plain, and commanding pression that they are accurate ; it is difficult to an extensive view of the Jordan valley ; the site think that he could have come forward to contra- therefore, it is argued, if adopted for Mahanaim, dict Merrill as categorically as he does, without the would well suit the conditions of the narrative in assurance that he was on firm ground in doing so. 2 S 18 (see Hastings’ D.B. s.v.). It is probable that the Mizpah’ of Gn 3149 was On the topography of the Jabbok valley, the further to the north or north-east than either Kal&dquo;at article of Professor J. A. Paine, Succoth and er-Rabad or Suf (for it seems to mark the border in Penuel not yet identified,’ in the Bibl. Sacra, 1878, these parts between Israelitish and Aramaean terri- pp. 4S i-98, should especially be consulted. This tory) : but that hardly affects the main question ; article is mainly a criticism-and, so far as one Jacob will in any case have approached the region who has not personally visited the locality can of the Jabbok from the north or north-east. To judge, a conclusive criticism -of an article by consider, then, Merrill’s route first. If Jacob passed Merrill in the same periodical, 1877, pp. 742 ff., in by (or near) Suleikhat, he will naturally have come which sites are proposed for these two places. Pro- down to it by the route passing north and south along fessor Paine describes the region about the Jabbok the Gh6r 2 ; but a glance at the map will show how minutely, with a sketch-map (p. 483), examines improbable it is that, having reached the neigh- Merrill’s identifications from the point of view of bourhood of Deir C A1Iä, he should then, if his both topography and philology, and (if his de- goal were the ford ed-Damiyeh, have made a scriptions may be assumed to be correct) shows défour of 6 miles to the east, up the valley of the convincingly that they cannot be sustained. As Jabbok, to Tulul edh-Dhahab ( = Penuel), and regards the lower course of the Jabbok valley, then back again,-crossing the stream (Gn 3222) there is a remarkable conflict of testimony : while ~ as he returned, and afterwards, of course, recross- Merrill (pp. 748-50) speaks of it as the man ~ ing it, to Deir ’Alla ( = Succoth), in order then to thoroughfare to the east’ with ~ a good and easy ) resume his journey to ed-Dimiyeh. Moreover, road,’ Professor Paine declares emphatically that ; if Tulul edh-Dhahab is Penuel, it must have been there is practically no road through it whatever useless either for the Midianites to take flight up from the ford ez-Zubliyeh, a little south of Jerash, to it, or for Gideon to pursue them; for, as has 3 been Succoth is said in the Talm. to have been called in later times shown, according to Professor Paine, the Tar alah, or Dar; alah but it is very doubtful whether, as Merrill thinks, banks of the stream for some 10 miles above Tulul Deir ’Allā has any connexion with this ; for Dcir is a Syriac and Arabic word (common in names of places) meaning ’monastery,’ which there is 1 Similarly Thomson, Land and Book, iii.