The Giant Cities of Bashan ;
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>XSOA tf£ ^t^ E *S S&OfrTfLtM/ fl>resenteo to Zbc Xibrar? of tbe ^University of Toronto Dr. Malcolm J # Wilson THE GIANT CITIES OF BASHAN ; SYRIA'S HOLY PLACES. "V Jta^^ '**& J 3 to Hi CO < Q. THE GIANT CITIES OF BASH AN AND SYRIA S HOLY PLACES / THE BARRADAAT DAMASCUS. T. NELSON AND SONS IONDON F.r>IHBTJB.GH ABB NEW XOB.K. THE GIANT CITIES OF BASHAN SYRIA'S HOLY PLACES. BY THE rev. j. l: porter, a.m., AUTHOR OF "HURRAYS HAND-BOOK FOR SYRIA AND PALESTINE, "FIVE YEARS IN DAMASCUS," ETC. ETC. T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW. EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK. 1882. The Right of Translation Reserved.] TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE f0rb gnttmn nvti Claudmjj*, fLf)., Y LORD,— I dedicate this little volume to you in grateful acknowledgement of that personal friendship with which you have honoured me, and as a humble testimony, from one who feels a deep interest in Syria's welfare, to those noble exertions which your Lordship made to heal the divisions and promote the prosperity of that unhappy land. I have good reason to know that the wise counsels you gave and the enlight- ened policy you advocated, while British Commissioner in secured the esteem and confidence of all Syria, parties ; and I feel assured that, had the policy which you inaugu- rated with such success in the Lebanon been extended in the manner you proposed to the whole of Syria, the dawn of a bright future would ere this have begun to illumine its blood-stained plains and mountains. 1 have not said much in these pages of that war between 11 DEDICA T10N. rival sects which recently desolated some of the fairest provinces of Lebanon, nor of those massacres which must leave the brand of everlasting infamy alike on those who planned, fostered, and perpetrated them. I should per- haps have said more had I not expected that they would have found an abler historian in "our mutual friend" Mr. Cyril Graham. In the absence of fuller details, I am happy to be able to insert in an Appendix one or two deeply interesting papers from the Rev. Smylie Robson, who, as you know, passed through the fearful three days' carnage in Damascus. I confess that I feel considerable hesitation in placing these sketches of Bible lands and Bible story before one in every way so competent as your Lordship to detect their many imperfections. You will perceive that they are fragmentary. I do not attempt a description of all Palestine, or of all Syria. I omit many of the most noted places, and some of the most celebrated shrines. I do so, not because I think their mines of interest and instruc- tion have far it—I there is been exhausted ; from believe still much, very much, to be done for the illustration of the history and language of the Bible by the thoughtful and observant traveller. Bible stories are grafted upon local scenes as is the case in real ; and, always history, these scenes have moulded and regulated, to a greater or less the course of events the more extent, ; consequently, full and graphic the descriptions of the scenes, the more vivid and life-like will the stories become. The imagery DEDICA TION. IB of Scripture, too, is eminently Eastern : it is a reflec- tion of the country. The parables, metaphors, and illus- trations of the sacred writers were borrowed from the objects that met their eyes, and with which the first readers were familiar. Until we become equally familiar with those objects, much of the force and beauty of God's Word must be lost. The topography of Palestine can never detailed with too minuteness its be great ; scenery and natural products can never be studied with too much care. Bible metaphors and parables take the vividness of their own sunny clime when viewed among the hills of Palestine and Bible as if acted anew ; history appears when read upon its old stage. I have not avoided those more familiar localities, then, because previous writers have exhausted them, but simply because I have been anxious to lead my readers to other and less familiar scenes. I had opportunities, during my long residence in the East, of visiting regions seldom- some of them never before—trodden by European tra- vellers. As I could not undertake a survey of all the Bible lands over which I wandered, I have thought it best to confine myself in this volume to those which appear to furnish information in some measure fresh and new. I have passed by Bethlehem and Nazareth, Hebron and Jericho, Tiberias and Shechem, that I might linger in Philistia and Sharon, Lebanon and Palmyra, Hamath and Bashan. You will also observe, my Lord, that the book is not a iv DEDICA TION. of travel nor is it a simple diary ; disquisition upon history or geography. I have in most cases attempted to group together in a popular way the incidents and results of two, three, and occasionally many visits to the same region, filling in the events of sacred history, and showing the customs of primitive life, as illustrated by what passed before me. My aim has been to give, as far as possible, a complete picture, and to enable my readers to see the distant past more clearly through the medium of the present. During all my journeys the BIBLE was my constant companion. I read its prophecies, as well as its history, amid the scenes to which they refer. I could not shut my eyes to the graphic details of the Record, nor to the ruin and desolations of I the land ; and could not resist the conclusions which a careful comparison forced upon me. I do not wish, my Lord, to make you in any way responsible for these conclusions, or for the views I have ventured to express. Free thought and free inquiry, con- ducted honestly, and in the case of the Bible reverentially, is the right of every man. This, while fully granting it to others, I claim for myself. I have in all cases attempted to exhibit two pictures,—one of the country, as seen by myself; another as sketched by the Hebrew prophets. My readers, if not satisfied with my conclusions, can draw their own. One thing, however, all Eastern travellers must admit —the perfect harmony between the Bible and the land DED1CA TION. V in which it was written. I have heard your Lordship bear noble and eloquent testimony to the fact. Even M. Renan, with all his prejudices, saw it, and has ex- pressed it in language of equal truth and beauty: "Toute cette histoire qui, a distance, semble flotter dans les nuages d'un monde sans realitd, prit ainsi un corps, une solidite* qui m'dtonnerent. L'accord frappant des textes et des lieux, la merveilleuse harmonie de l'iddal evangelique avec le paysage qui lui servit de cadre furent pour moi comme une revelation." These are remarkable words, which the Biblical student must fully appreciate. Permit me, in conclusion, to thank your Lordship for this opportunity of paying my hearty, though humble tribute to your high talents and distinguished services, and to subscribe myself, My Lord, Yours faithfully and respectfully, J. L. PORTER. Brandon Towers, Belfast. January 1865. CONTENTS. Bash an and its Giant Cities 9 The Jordan and the Dead Sea 97 Jerusalem and its Environs— I. Jerusalem .. .. .. .. 117 II. The Tombs of the Holy City III. Olivet and Bethany i53 IV. The Battle-fields of Gibeon, Ai, and Michmash 169 The Land of the Philistines 183 Galilee and the Sea-Coast— I. Sharon and Carmel 223 II. Mount Tabor and the Valley of Jezreel 239 III. The Shrines of Naphtali and Cities of Phoenicia 257 Northern Border Land— I. Lebanon . 279 II. Hamath and the Northern Border of Israel 30J III. Palmyra 321 IV. Damascus 33^ Appendix .. 335 Texts of Scripture Illustrated or Explained 355 Index 369 Jgasjfan anfr its i&mrd Cifes. i. ' A!l Bashan, unto Salchah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. For only Og king of Baskatt remained of the remnant of tJie giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man And the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, gave I unto the hall all tribe of Manasseh ; the region of Argob, with all Bashan, which was called tht land ofgiants"—Deut. iii. 10-13. HISTORICAL NOTICES. ASHAN is the land of sacred romance. From the remotest historic period down to our own day there has ever been something of mystery and of strange wild interest connected with that old kingdom. In the memo- rable raid of the Arab chiefs of Mesopotamia into Eastern and " Central Palestine, we read that the Rephaim in Ashteroth- Karnaim" bore the first brunt of the onset. The Rephaim,— that " is, the giants," for such is the meaning of the name,— men of stature, beside whom the Jewish spies said long after- wards that they were as grasshoppers (Num. xiii. 33). These were the aboriginal inhabitants of "Bashan, and probably of the greater part of Canaan. Most of them died out, or were exter- minated at a but a few remarkable very early period ; specimens of the race— such as Goliath, and Sippai, and Lahmi (1 Chron. 12 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. — xx.) were the terror of the Israelites, and— the champions of their foes, as late as the time of David; and, strange to say, traditionary memorials of these primeval giants exist even now in almost every section of Palestine, in the form of graves ol enormous dimensions,—as the grave of Abel, near Damascus, feet that of in thirty long ; Seth, Anti-Lebanon, about the same size; and that of Noah, in Lebanon, which measures no less than seventy yards! The capital and stronghold of the in Bashan was so called Rephaim Ashteroth-Karnaim ; from " the goddess there worshipped,—the mysterious two-horned Astarte." We shall presently see, if my readers will accompany me in my proposed tour, that the cities built and occupied some forty centuries ago by these old giants exist even yet.