GREAT ASSYRIAN MONARCH, ASHURBANIPAL, AS A LION HUNTERThis famous conqueror was one of the most enlightened of Assyrian rulers. He encouraged literature, and through his wise counsels the annals of Babylonia and Assyria, written on clay tablets, have been preserved for us in the library of his palace. From these we have learned practically all we know of Babylonian-Assyrian history and religion.
GREAT ASSYRIAN MONARCH, ASHURBANIPAL, AS A LION HUNTER
This famous conqueror was one of the most enlightened of Assyrian rulers. He encouraged literature, and through his wise counsels the annals of Babylonia and Assyria, written on clay tablets, have been preserved for us in the library of his palace. From these we have learned practically all we know of Babylonian-Assyrian history and religion.
In the very first ages of the world, Babylonia, with Egypt, led the way as the pioneers of mankind in the arts of civilization. Alphabetic writing, astronomy, history, chronology, architecture, plastic art, sculpture, navigation, agriculture, textile industry, all had their origin in one or other of these two countries.
The ancient kingdom of Babylonia was bounded on the east by Elam or Susiana; on the south by the Persian Gulf; on the west by the deserts of Arabia; and on the north by Assyria. It was watered by two streams, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and it was intersected by a number of canals, branching out from these great rivers, and dug in order to save the country from the effects of the annual inundations.
From the head waters of the Tigris and Euphrates to the Persian Gulf is a distance of about eight hundred miles. The land included between the two rivers divides itself naturally into two parts.
The northern one of these, Assyria, is a great plain of limestone and selenite, in area almost equal to England. The northern and western portions of this plain are broken by mountains and are of a fertile character, as is also that part of Assyria which lies east of the Tigris.
The southern of the two principal parts, Babylonia, is of alluvial character, and in ancient times was about equal in area to the combined territory of Holland and Belgium or to the southern half of Louisiana, the latter a region to which it has been likened in character. On the east of the Tigris, the Babylonian plain stretches away for a distance of some thirty to fifty miles, to the mountains of Elam. On the west it merges into the Arabian desert, twenty or thirty miles from the Euphrates, where the low hills check the overflow of the river.
Babylonia appears to have been divided into the two large provinces ofSumer or Shinar (South Babylonia), and Accad or north Babylonia. The capital of this latter province was, like Babylon, built on both banks of the Euphrates, the larger half being called Sippara of Samas, the sungod (the modern Abu Habba), and the smaller half Accad or Agade. The latter was afterwards named “Sippara of the moon-goddess.” The greater part of Babylonia is now included in the modern Turkish province of Bagdad.
Ancient Babylonia also contained a number of other large cities and there was a succession of famous capitals: Babylon, of the Babylonian Empire, and afterwards of the Persian; Seleucia, founded by Seleucus, king of Syria, after the death of Alexander the Great; Ctesiphon, capital of the Parthian Empire; in modern times, Bagdad.
Babylon, on the Euphrates, is first mentioned in a tablet of 3800 B. C. From 2250 B. C. it became the capital of Babylonia and the holy city of western Asia. The name Babylonia is the Greek form of Babel, meaning “The Gate of the God.” Its Persian name was Babirus. It was according to the accounts of Greek writers, the greatest city of antiquity.
Nebuchadnezzar, who took more pride in the buildings constructed under his auspices than in his victorious campaigns, concentrated all his care upon the adorning and beautifying the city. To this end he completed the fortification of the city begun by his father Nabopolassar, consisting in a double inclosure of mighty walls which were strengthened by two hundred and fifty towers and pierced by one hundred gates of brass. The city itself was adorned with numerous temples, chief among them Esagila (“the high-towering house”), temple of the city and of the national god Merodach (BabylonianMarduk) with his spouse Zirpanit. In the neighborhood of it was the royal palace, the site of which was identified with the ruins of Al-Kasr. Sloping toward the river were the Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders, the location of which is in the northern mound of ruins, Babel.
The Tower of Babel, which is supposed to be the temple of Nebo in Borsippa, not far from Babylon, represents the most imposing ruin of Babylonia. It is termed in the inscriptionsEzida(“the eternal house”), an ancient sanctuary of Nebo, and was restored with great splendor by Nebuchadnezzar. It represents in its construction a sort of pyramid built in seven stages, whence it is sometimes called “temple of the seven spheres of heaven and earth,” and it is assumed that the narrative of the “Tower of Babel” which the builders intended to carry up to heaven, was connected with this temple.
In the conquest of Cyrus, 538 B. C., the city of Babylon was spared. Darius Hystaspis razed its walls and towers. Xerxes (486-465 B. C.) despoiled the temples of their golden statues and treasures. Alexander the Great wished to restore the city, but was prevented by his early death. The decay of Babylon was hastened by the foundation in its neighborhood of Selencia, 300 B. C., which was built from the ruins of Babylon. The last who calls himself in an inscription “King of Babylon” was Antiochus the Great (223-187 B. C.)
It is now evident, from the monuments and inscriptions which have been obtained from the traditionally oldest cities, that the civilization of the ancient people of Babylonia has an antiquity rivaling that of ancient Egypt. The American discoveries at Nippur in 1888-90 carry back Babylonian civilization to about 7000 B. C.
The early struggles for supremacy among the city states seem to have been confined to the lower valley of the Tigris and Euphrates; but about 4000 B. C. a mighty conqueror, Lugalzaggisi of Uruk, made expeditions to the Mediterranean and to the mountains at the north of Mesopotamia. He styled himself “King of Uruk,” “King of the Totality.”
Very early, however, a Semitic invasion must have taken place, for the date of two Semitic kings, namely, Sargon I. and Naram-Sin, of Accad, is placed, according to the testimony of the later Babylonians themselves, at about B. C. 3800 and 3750 respectively. Gudea, the priest-king, and a famous builder, was the chief ruler about 2800 B. C.
About B. C. 2250 Hammurabi sat upon the throne of Babylon, the name of which now first appears in cuneiform records, although it may have been founded centuries before. This great monarch, Hammurabi, has left records of his enlightened efforts for the agricultural development of the land, and a great law code, cut in the enduring rock, which carries our knowledge of the history of law back a thousand years before the age of Moses. As yet no inscription has been discovered giving the details of his wars; but it is evident that he destroyed the Elamite power in Babylonia, and his assumption of the ancient titles “King of Sumer and Accad,” “King of the Four Quarters of the World,” seems to indicate that his power extended far. In Larsa and Sippar he erected temples to the sun-god, and at Babylon and Borsippa he enlarged those already standing. His great canal running down through the heart of Babylonia made the bordering territory fertile; and the granary built at Babylon stored the increased crops of grain. It may be that Lugalzaggisi and Sargon I. exceeded Hammurabi in the extent of their sway, but Hammurabi made Babylon the center of culture for southwestern Asia during millenniums.
After him we know little of the history until Burnaburiash, a Hassite king who was on the throne about 1400 B. C., exchanged letters with Amenhotep III. of Egypt as recorded in the Tel-el-Amarna Letters.
About 1250 B. C. Babylonia was conquered by Assyria, and, though it soon regained its independence and was again ruled by native kings, it remained a politically subordinate power, and was repeatedly conquered by its more powerful neighbor, until the fall of Nineveh, consequently we must now consider Assyria, as the successor of thefirstBabylonian Empire, and go back a little into its history up to the time of Tiglath Pileser I., the conqueror of old Babylon.
THE TOWER OF BABEL RESTOREDThis model of the famous “tower that reached to Heaven” was constructed by Sir Henry Rawlinson after years of study and exploration. The drawing, by O. Schulz, is now in the United States National Museum at Washington, D. C.
THE TOWER OF BABEL RESTORED
This model of the famous “tower that reached to Heaven” was constructed by Sir Henry Rawlinson after years of study and exploration. The drawing, by O. Schulz, is now in the United States National Museum at Washington, D. C.
Assyria proper, as heretofore stated, was a table-land, bounded on the north by part of Armenia; on the east by that part of Media which lies towards Mt. Zagros; on the south by Elam or Susiana and part of Babylonia; and on the west by the river Tigris, or later by the Chaboras, a branch of the Euphrates. The greater part of the ancient kingdom of Assyria is now contained in the modern province of Kurdistan. In size it may be compared to Great Britain.
It was divided into seven provinces, and contained many great cities, of which the chief after Nineveh, the capital, were Asshur, which alone stood on the west bank of the Tigris, Calah, Dur-Sargon, Arbela, Tarbisi. The ruins of many cities are grouped around Nineveh; while lower down the Tigris is exhibited an almost unbroken line of ruins from Tekrit to Bagdad.
Ninevehwas situated on the eastern bank of the upper Tigris opposite the modern Mosul, two hundred and thirty miles northwest of Bagdad. The ruins of the original capital, Asshur, now called Kalah Sherghat, are some sixty miles south. Nineveh, Calah (Nimrud), and Dur-Sargon (Khorsabad), ultimately supplanted it in importance. When Nineveh itself fell, the whole Assyrian empire—essentially a military power—perished with it. It was not until the excavations of Botta in 1842 and Layard in 1845 that the remains, first of Dur-Sargon, then of Nineveh itself, were revealed to the world.
As a result of these excavations, the general outline of the city, the remains of four palaces and numerous sculptures, and thousands of tablets (principally from the so-called library of Ashurbanipal) were discovered. The greater part of these is now in the British museum. The city had a circumference of from seven to eight miles, the ruins of the walls showing a height in some parts of fifty feet. Shalmaneser I. built a palace at Nineveh and made it the city of his residence. Samsi-ramman III. decorated and restored the temple of Ishtar, famous for a special phase of the cult of the goddess. For a time Nineveh was neglected, but Sennacherib (705-681 B. C.), was a special patron of Nineveh. He surrounded it with a wall, replaced the small palace at the northeast wall by a large one, built another palace which he filled with cedar wood and adorned with colossal bulls and lions, and beautified the city with a park. Esarhaddon finished a temple, widened the streets, and beautified the city, forcing the kings whom he conquered to furnish materials for adorning the city and palaces. Nineveh succumbed to the combined attack of the Medes under Cyaxares and the Babylonians under Nabopolassar in 608 B. C.
In its times of prosperity, Assyria extended its borders on every side; and the Greeks and Romans often included the whole of Syria and of the regions watered by the Euphrates and the Tigris under the name.
Assyria and the neighboring provinces were celebrated for their great fertility; they were the original home of wheat and barley, and the date-palm grew there to perfection. The irrigation of the crops was ensured by the annual overflow of the Tigris.
The Assyrian kingdom first began to be powerful about 1350. Shalmaneser I. had become[356]so powerful that he invaded and captured Babylon about 1250 B. C. His descendant in the direct line of kings was Tiglath-Pileser I., about 1100 B. C., the real founder of the first Assyrian empire, whose reign forms the zenith of the early empire. He spread the dominion of Assyria over all western Asia, from the frontiers of Elam to the shores of the Mediterranean, and from the slopes of the mountains of Armenia to the shores of the Persian Gulf. He captured Babylon, Sippara, and reduced Babylonia to the position of a tributary state. On the west he advanced as far as Khilikhi (Cilicia), defeated the Hittites, captured their stronghold Carchemish, and received the homage of the people of Arvad and the cities of northern Phœnicia.
In 960 B. C. a new dynasty was founded by Assur-dân II., whose son Rimmon-nirari II., and great-grandson Asshur-nasirpal, by a long series of cruel wars once again extended the power of Assyria. The extensive trade carried on by Phœnician merchants in Assyria at this time is largely illustrated by the Phœnician bronzes and ivories disinterred in the palace of Asshur-nasirpal at Nimrud.
His son, Shalmaneser II., was successful in war against the monarch of Babylon, Benhadad, king of Damascus, the rulers of Tyre and Sidon, and Jehu, king of Israel. In 745 B. C., Tiglath-Pileser II. became king of Assyria, made himself master of Babylon, and had great successes in war against Syria and Armenia, extending the empire greatly.
Sargon (722-705 B. C.) was engaged in war against Samaria, which he captured, carrying the people into captivity; against King Sabako of Egypt, whom he defeated; and the revolted Armenians, whom he thoroughly subdued. He then turned against Merodach-Baladan, king of Babylonia, and drove him from his throne, and, after extensive internal reforms, was succeeded by his son, the famous Sennacherib.
This warlike monarch marched into Syria in 701 B. C., captured Sidon and Askelon, defeated the forces of Hezekiah, king of Judah, with his Egyptian and Ethiopian allies, and made Hezekiah pay tribute. In 700 B. C. Sennacherib marched into Arabia, there defeated Tirhakah, king of Egypt and Ethiopia, and then his army perished before Libnah, in the south of Judah, by the catastrophe recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. Sennacherib was engaged, on his return to Assyria, in crushing rebellions of the Babylonians, constructing canals and aqueducts, and greatly adding to the size and splendor of Nineveh.
In 681 he was murdered by two of his sons, and another son, Esarhaddon, became king in 680. Esarhaddon made successful expeditions into Syria, Arabia, Egypt, and as far as the Caucasus Mountains, and after the erection of splendid buildings at Nimrud and other cities, was succeeded in 668 by his son Asshur-banipal (the origin of the Greek “Sardanapalus”).
The Assyrian Empire was at its height of power under the kings Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Asshurbanipal. The states nominally subject to the Assyrian king, paying tribute and homage, extended from the river Halys, in Asia Minor, and the seaboard of Syria, on the west, to the Persian Desert on the east; and from the Caspian and the Armenian Mountains, on the north, to Arabia and the Persian Gulf, on the south; and latterly included Egypt.
Ashurbanipal inherited Egypt as part of his dominions, but his power was not firmly established in that country until he led an expedition there, and sacked the city of Thebes. He erected splendid buildings at Nineveh and Babylon, and did much for literature and the arts; so that under him there was a great development of luxury and splendor. He died in 625 B. C.; and soon afterwards Babylonia, for the last time, and with success, revolted. The Babylonians marched from the south against Nineveh, under their governor Nabopolassar; and the now powerful Medes, from the north, came against it under their king, Cyaxares. Nineveh was taken and given to the flames, which have left behind them in the mounds the calcined stone, charred wood, and statues split by the heat, that furnish silent and convincing proof of the catastrophe. Thus, about 625 B. C., warlike, splendid, proud Assyria fell, after which it became a Median province.
The founder of the later Babylonian Empire (625 B. C. and ending 538, with its subjection to Persia) was Nabopolassar, who joined the Medes in the destruction of the Assyrian power. Babylon then became an independent kingdom, extending from the valley of the Lower Euphrates to Mount Taurus, and partly over Syria, Phœnicia, and Palestine.
Nabopolassar was succeeded by his son, the famous Nebuchadnezzar (604 to 561 B. C.), who carried his arms with success against the cities of Jerusalem and Tyre, and even into Egypt. The empire was at its height of power and glory under him, and extended from the Euphrates to Egypt, and from the deserts of Arabia on the south to the Armenian Mountains on the north.
The carrying into captivity of the Jews by Nebuchadnezzar and the pride of his heart,—his image of gold in the plain of Dura, his fiery furnace, his strange madness, recovery, and repentance,—are well known from the account in the Hebrew Scriptures by the prophet Daniel.
Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his son Evil-Merodach, the friend of Jehoiachin, captive King of Judah. He was followed by Neriglassar, a successful conspirator against his power and life; and he in turn, after some years, was defeated and slain in battle against the Medes and Persians. The assassination, after a few months, of the tyrant Laborosoarchod brought the last Babylonian monarch, Nabonidus, to the throne, in 555 B. C.
The Medes and Persians to the north had now become a formidable power, and in 540 the Persian king, Cyrus, marched against Babylon, and under its walls defeated Nabonidus, who fled to Borsippa, south of Babylon. The capital was held by a son of Nabonidus, who had been made co-king with his father,—Belshazzar. The revelries of this sovereign during the siege, the handwriting on the wall, and his death the same night, are given in the scriptural narrative of Daniel. The Babylonian Empire fell in 538 B. C., and became a province of the Persian Empire. The site of the great city of Babylon is now a marsh, formed by inundations of the river, due to the destruction of the embankments and the choking up of the canals.
Commerce and Manufactures.—The Babylonians were a commercial and luxurious people; the Assyrians were pre-eminently warlike. The position of the great city of Babylon on the Lower Euphrates, near to the Persian Gulf, made it a great emporium for the trade between India and eastern Asia and western Asia, with the nearest parts of Africa and Europe. From Ceylon came ivory, cinnamon and ebony; spices from the eastern islands; myrrh and frankincense from Arabia; cotton, pearls, and valuable timber, both for ship-building and ornament, from the islands in the Persian Gulf. There was also a great caravan trade with northern India and adjacent lands, whence came gold, dyes, jewels, and fine wool.
Manufactures.—The wealth of Babylon became prodigious and proverbial, and her commerce was, in large measure, due to ingenious and splendid manufactures. Carpets, curtains, and fine muslins, skilfully woven and brilliantly dyed, of elegant pattern and varied hue, were famous wherever luxury was known. The Babylonian gems in the British Museum display art of the highest order in cutting precious stones.
Government and Learning.—The system of government was a pure despotism, with viceroys ruling the provinces under the monarch, who dwelt in luxurious seclusion from his people. The priests and learned men of Babylon were mainly Chaldæans.
There were astronomers or, more properly, astrologers, in several of the cities; and the towers, such as that of Babel, were probably both temples and observatories. The clearness of the sky and the levelness of the horizon on all sides favored the study of the stars, which was more closely connected with religion than any form of science. The Chaldæans worshipped the heavenly bodies. When Babylon was taken by Alexander the Great, in 331 B. C., there was found in the city a series of observations of the stars dating from 2234 B. C.
Architecture and Art.—Assyrian art must be considered great in architecture and sculpture. The emblematic figures of the gods show dignity and grandeur. The scenes from real life, of war, and of the chase, are bold and vivid; and in succeeding ages marked progress is shown in the acquirement of a more free, natural, life-like and varied execution, though the artists never learned perspective and proportion.
The Assyrians constructed arches, tunnels, and aqueducts; were skilled in engraving gems, and in the arts of enamelling and inlaying; made porcelain, transparent and colored glass, and even lenses; ornaments of bronze and ivory, bells, and golden bracelets and earrings of good design and workmanship, were all produced. In mechanics, and for measuring time, they used the pulley, the lever, the water-clock, and the sun-dial.
Implements and Method of Warfare.—The implements and methods used in war, as the monuments show, included swords, spears, maces, and bows and arrows, as weapons of offence; cavalry and chariots for charging; movable towers and battering-rams for sieges; and circular intrenched camps as quarters for a military force.
Religion.—In common with all Semites, the Babylonians were exceedingly religious, and were consequently greatly in the power of their priests, through whom tithes and offerings to their numerous gods were made.
Their earliest chief divinity was apparently the godEa, lord of the deep, possessor of unsearchable wisdom, and creator of all things. When, however, Babylon became the chief of the city states of Babylonia,Merodach, the god of that city, assumed the first place. He was a reflection of the sun, or the light of day, and was worshiped as he who constantly sought to do good to mankind. His chief title wasBel, (Baal of the Bible) “the Lord”; and his vast temples were maintained by the Babylonian kings with pride. The priests attached to this temple were richly endowed, and the maintenance of the worship involved a great outlay. The impression made by this temple and its worship on the Jews during their captivity is reflected in the account of Bel and the Dragon in the Old Testament.
The other gods of Babylonia would seem to have been the same as those of Assyria, which borrowed its religion, as well as its other culture, from Babylonia.Asshurwas the chief god, and is always named first in the invocations of the kings.Sinwas the moon-god,Shamashthe sun-god,Anumthe god of the sky,Belthe god of the earth, andEathe god of the abyss and of profound wisdom.Rammanu(the Biblical Rimmon) was the ruler of the weather,Ishtar(the Biblical Ashtoreth) the goddess of love,Nebothe god of learning, andNergalthe god of war and hunting. The Assyrian temples always contained statues of the gods or goddesses, and sometimes a particular statue was held in special veneration, as theIhstarof Nineveh, or the Ihstar of Arbela; only two statues of a god have been discovered in modern times, namely the two limestone figures of Nebo, disinterred in a temple at Nimrud, and dating from the eighth century B. C. With regard to public worship, we know that constant sacrifices and libations were offered to the gods, images were carried in procession, and a highly organized and richly endowed priesthood existed. The building and maintenance of temples were among the chief functions of the king, who himself boasted of the title of high priest.
JERUSALEM, THE HOLY CITY OF THE JEWS
JERUSALEM, THE HOLY CITY OF THE JEWS
The history and characteristics of the Hebrews are fully dealt with in the Old Testament, the important parts of which should be familiar to everyone.
They were a pure Semitic race, akin to the Phœnicians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians. The founder of the nation was Abraham, who, about the twenty-third century before Christ, removed from the plains of Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan, on the southeastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. This land has since been variously named Palestine, Canaan, the Land of Israel, or the Holy Land, and was the scene of most of the great events of the Bible. Just as the old name Canaan denoted originally the low-lying country along the coast, so Palestine means literally “Land of the Philistines,” and was not used of the inland districts before the time of the Romans.
The whole region is practically an isolated oasis, with a productive climate due to proximity to the sea.
All communication between the Babylonians, the Chaldeans and the Assyrians on the one hand, and the Egyptians on the other, was by the way of Palestine. Thus the Holy Land was at the very center of the ancient world. It is this position with its fundamental significance in history which renders it unique among the lands of the earth. It has always been the refuge of the drifting populations of Arabia. Never sought for itself alone, except by the Crusaders, it has been over-run constantly by invaders from the north seeking Egypt, or by the return attack. Thus the Hittites, Ethiopians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Scythians, Parthians, Persians, Seljuk Turks, and Mongols in turn devastated it. Alexander passed through to Egypt in 322 B. C.; the wars of the Seleucids and Ptolemies passed over it; Pompey in 65 B. C. brought it under the Roman Empire; the Crusaders established themselves there from 1098 to 1187; Napoleon in 1799 abandoned his first ambition on its soil. Yet its destiny was typified by the Arab conquest in 634 A. D.; there is everything to attract the desert tribes, but nothing for others except the religious sentiment of Christians.
The ancestors of the Israelites were certain of the pastoral tribes having their abode in the wild tracts to the south and east of Palestine. Their nearest kinsmen were Edom, Ammon, and Moab. About 2200 B. C. they migrated under their tribal chief, Abraham, from Haran in Mesopotamia into the land of Canaan. Here the tribes continued to lead a pastoral life, and ultimately, in the time of Jacob, a famine in the land of Canaan led to a fresh migration into Egypt. This movement is especially associated with the name of Joseph.
Here they obtained leave from Pharaoh to dwell in the land of Goshen, where their continued adherence to their own customs and pastoral life led them to be accounted barbarians by the cultured Egyptians. In Egypt a time of great oppression came upon the Hebrews, and they were subjected to the harshest treatment and repressive measures, induced by a fear lest they should ally themselves with Egypt’s foes. Then there arose the figure of Moses, the great founder of both the religion and the law of Israel.
Moses was the son-in-law of a priest of Midian, and at Horeb (i. e. Sinai), the mountain of God, he heard the call of Yahweh (Jehovah), his father’s God, to deliver Israel from the bondage of Egypt. He had much difficulty in rousing the enthusiasm of those he was sent to save, but ultimately the work was accomplished by means of the miracles wrought by Yahweh on behalf of his people. Moses led the Israelites to Mount Sinai, and here a covenant was solemnly made with Yahweh, and the new religion of Israel was inaugurated, a religion that may rightly be called new, because based upon a conception of the Deity, more spiritual than any which had yet been conceived. From Sinai they passed to the work of conquering Canaan for which they had set out. An attempt made at Kadesh on the southern frontier was unsuccessful, and they returned to the wilderness, for a time which according to the Biblical narrative made the whole period forty years.
During this time Moses died, and it was under Joshua that the entry into Palestine was finally made. The Canaanites were put down, but intermarriage between Hebrews and Canaanites was frequent. Hence came the ills of idolatry. The Israelites now settled down to an agricultural and commercial life, entering in many cases into treaties of friendship with their Canaanite neighbors. This weakened the bonds of union between the various tribes and might well have led to the ultimate fusion of the two races; but it was prevented by the rise from time to time of the Judges, who roused the dying ardor of the tribes and led them to the extermination of the enemies of Yahweh.
Fifteen such heroes are named in the Book of Judges, from which book it will be seen how various were the enemies with which they had to contend. Their period shows a regular alternation of sin, punishment, and salvation. After Joshua, comes a long period of falling away, followed by the rise of Othniel who delivers Israel from the oppressions of Cushan of Mesopotamia, into whose hands they had been given. On his death, Israel again sins and is punished by Eglon, king of Moab. This time salvation comes through Ehud, but his death is followed by another relapse into idolatry, and so things continue. Among the rest of the “Judges,” the most famous are Deborah the prophetess, and Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and the prophet Samuel.
During this period Israel does not come at all into contact with the great kingdoms of the East. At the time of the Hebrew settlement in Palestine, the country was under the suzerainty of the Pharaohs, but it is probable that by this time the suzerainty was little more than a name. The conflicts were rather with their own kinsmen, the Moabites, Ammonites, and also the Midianites.
The Philistines were among the most powerful opponents of Israel, and the story of Samson relates particularly to them. It was while suffering under defeat from this race that the Israelites cried for a king, not only that by this centralization of authority more head might be made against the invaders, but also that they might be like “all the other nations.” Samuel the prophet, who was at that time their leader, reluctantly consented to accede to their desires and chose as their king Saul, the son of Kish.
The sole monarchy occupied three reigns, those of Saul, David, and Solomon. Saul reigned for nearly forty years, and, after wars with the neighboring Moabites, Edomites, Amalekites, and others, was defeated and driven to suicide by the powerful Philistines.
Saul’s son-in-law, David, the son of Jesse, reigned also about forty years, and, having conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites (1048 B. C.) made it the capital of his kingdom, the seat of the national government and religion. David was a warlike monarch, and conquered the Philistines, Moabites, Edomites, and Syrians, extending his power from the Red Sea to the Euphrates.
His son, Solomon, succeeded him, and also reigned forty years (977-937 B. C.). Then the Hebrew nation attained the height of its power, and he confirmed and extended the conquests of David. Solomon married a daughter of a Pharaoh, king of Egypt, formed an alliance with Hiram, king of Tyre, built the magnificent temple at Jerusalem, and made his kingdom the supreme monarchy in western Asia.
An extensive commerce was carried on by land and sea. Solomon’s ships, manned by Phœnician sailors, traded to the farthest parts of the Mediterranean westward, and from ports[360]on the Red Sea to southern Arabia, Ethiopia, and perhaps India. From Egypt came horses, chariots, and linen; ivory, gold, silver, peacocks and apes from Tarshish or Tartessus, a district in the south of Spain; and gold, spices, and jewels from Ophir, variously regarded as in southern Arabia, India, and eastern Africa, south of the Red Sea. The corn, wine and oil of Judæa were exchanged by Solomon for the cedars of Lebanon supplied by Hiram, king of Tyre.
On the death of Solomon, in 975 B. C., the temporal glory of the Hebrews was eclipsed. Ten of the twelve tribes revolted against Solomon’s son and successor, Rehoboam, and formed a separate kingdom of Israel, with Samaria as capital; while the tribes of Judah and Benjamin made up the kingdom of Judah, having Jerusalem for the chief city. The Syrian possessions were lost; the Ammonites became independent; commerce declined; idolatry crept in and grew; the prophets of God threatened and warned in vain; gleams of success against neighboring nations were mingled with defeat and disgrace suffered from the Edomites, Philistines, and Syrians, until, in 740 B. C., Tiglath-pileser II., king of Assyria, carried into captivity in Media the tribes east, and partly west, of the Jordan.
In 721 B. C., Sargon, king of Assyria, took Samaria, and carried away the people of Israel as captives beyond the Euphrates. The kingdom of Israel thus came to an end after a duration of about two hundred and fifty years.
In 713 B. C., Judah, under King Hezekiah, was attacked by Sennacherib, king of Assyria, and relieved by the destruction of the Assyrian army. A time of peace and prosperity followed, but in 677 the Assyrians again invaded the country, and carried off King Manasseh to Babylon.
In 624 B. C., the good king Josiah repaired the temple and put down idolatry, but was defeated and slain by the Egyptian king Pharaoh-Necho, in 610. In 606 B. C., Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took Jerusalem, and made the king, Jehoiakim, tributary; on his revolt, Jerusalem was again taken, and ten thousand captives of the higher class were carried off to Babylon, with the treasures of the palace and temple. In 593 B. C., the Jewish king Zedekiah revolted from Nebuchadnezzar, who now determined to put an end to the rebellious nation. In 588 B. C., Jerusalem was taken and plundered; the walls were destroyed; the city and temple burned, and nearly the whole nation was carried away as prisoners to Babylon. For over fifty years the land lay desolate, and the history of the Hebrew nation is transferred to the land where they mourned in exile. Then were raised the voices of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Isaiah, in their definite predictions of the Messiah.
The history of the Jews during the Babylonish captivity.
In 537 B. C., Cyrus the Great became monarch of the Persian Empire. He issued an edict in 536 B. C., by which the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. Nearly fifty thousand Jews, chiefly of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, went to the old home of their race under the command of Zerubbabel and Jeshua, taking with them many of the vessels of silver and gold carried away by Nebuchadnezzar. Zerubbabel was appointed governor of the land, now a dependency of the Persian Empire. In 519 B. C., the Persian king Darius Hystaspis confirmed the edict of Cyrus, and in 515 the Temple was completed and dedicated. The ten tribes disappeared at this time from history, such of them as returned to their land having united themselves with the tribe of Judah, and henceforth the Hebrews are called Jews and their country Judea.
In the reign of the Persian king Artaxerxes more of the Jews emigrated from Babylonia to Judea under the command of Ezra, 458 B. C., and Ezra was governor of the land until 445.
Nehemiah was governor (with an interval) from 445 to 420, and under him the walls and towers of Jerusalem were rebuilt, and the city acquired something of its ancient importance. With 420 B. C. the history of the Jews ends, as far as the Scriptural narrative goes.
From 420 to 332, Judea continued subject to Persia, paying a yearly tribute, and being governed by the high priest, under the Satrap of Syria. In 332 B. C., Alexander the Great, then engaged in the conquest of the Persian Empire, visited Jerusalem, and showed respect to the high priest and the sacred rites of the Temple. In 330 the Persian Empire fell under the arms of Alexander, who died at Babylon in 323 B. C. Judea was taken possession of by Alexander’s general, Ptolemy Lagus, and from 300 to 202 B. C. was governed by the dynasty of the Ptolemies, ruling Egypt, Petra and southern Syria. The government was administered by the high priests under the Ptolemies, whose capital was at the new city of Alexandria in Egypt. Now the Jews began to spread themselves over the world, the Greek language became common in Judea, and the Septuagint (or Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures) was written during this and the following century.
In 202 B. C., Antiochus the Great, king of Syria (including in its empire Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, etc.), conquered Judea from Ptolemy V. Antiochus Epiphanes, one of the sons and successors of the great Antiochus, drove the Jews to rebellion by persecution and profanation of their Temple and religion.
Under the great patriot and hero Judas Maccabeus, the Jews asserted their religious freedom in 166 B. C. Antiochus Epiphanes died in 164, and Maccabeus fought with success against the Idumeans, Syrians, Phœnicians and[361]others, who had formed a league for the destruction of the Jews. In 163, Judas Maccabeus became governor of Judea under the King of Syria, but fell in battle, in 161, while he was resisting an invasion of his country by the troops of Demetrius Soter, new ruler of the empire. His brother, Jonathan Maccabeus, ruled from 161 to 143 B. C., amidst many troubles from Syria, and was succeeded by his brother, Simon Maccabeus, who strengthened the land by fortifications, was recognized by the Romans as high priest and ruler of Judea, and fell by assassination in 136 B. C.
His son, John Hyrcanus, threw off at last the yoke of Syria, and made himself master of all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, reigning then in peace till 106 B. C., when the line of the greater Maccabean princes ended. A miserable time of civil wars and religious and political faction followed.
These ended in the interference of Rome; and in 63 B. C. Pompey took Jerusalem, after a siege of three months, and entered the “Holy of holies” in the Temple, with a profanation before unheard of in Jewish history. From this time the Jewish state was virtually subject to Rome, and became, in the end, a part of the Roman province of Syria.
The turbulence of the Jews under Roman rule is well known, and a general rebellion ended, after fearful bloodshed and misery, in the capture and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, A. D. 70. The history, as a separate political body, of the Hebrews thus ends with the dispersion of their remnant over the face of the civilized world.
The area of the Holy Land is about eleven thousand square miles—nearly as large as Belgium; its greatest length, from Beyrout to the southern point of the Dead Sea, being one hundred and eighty miles, and its greatest breadth, east to west, about sixty-five miles. It has a nearly straight western coast-line, with but two indentations—the Bay of Sidon, and the Bay of Acre. Though the Sinaitic Peninsula is not ageographicalpart of the Holy Land, itshistoryis really one with it, and is so considered in this article.
Notwithstanding its narrow limits, Palestine presents a remarkable variety of surface, scenery, and climate. The central portion consists of an undulating tableland (the “hills” or “hill-country”), separated from Lebanon on the north by the fertile Plain of Esdraelon (Jezreel). It has a gentle slope towards the west, but descends abruptly to the Jordan valley, the surface gradually rising, as it extends southward, till it reaches its greatest elevation (about 3,300 feet) in the neighborhood of Hebron, beyond which, near Beersheba, it sinks into the Idumæan Desert. The northern part of this tract is more fertile than that towards the south, the least productive district being the country round Jerusalem; but even there, the vine is grown with success, and the barren aspect of the plateau is relieved in many places by gardens of olives and figs and luxuriant cornfields.
To the west of the central tableland and the Lebanon ranges, there runs a strip of low seaboard, which expands into the plain of Philistia; to the north is the Valley of Sharon, once the Garden of Palestine, but now for the most part a marshy or sandy wilderness. The maritime plain is intersected by deep gullies, traversed in some cases by perennial streams. Oranges, lemons, citrons, bananas and melons grow luxuriantly, especially in the gardens of Jaffa and Ascalon.
East of the central tableland is a deep fissure, increasing in width from five to thirteen miles, down which flows the Jordan. Beyond Jordan is another upland district, forming a prolongation of the Anti-Libanus ranges, with an elevation of two to three thousand feet, succeeded on the east by a plateau which stretches away to the Arabian Desert. This region contains wide tracts of excellent pasture.
The highest point in Palestine is Jebel Jermuk (three thousand nine hundred and thirty-four feet). The height of Carmel—a northwestern spur of the uplands terminating in a promontory—one thousand seven hundred and forty feet.
Mount Nebo, a summit of Abarim, Moab (two thousand six hundred and forty-three feet), seven miles northeast of the Dead Sea, was the place of the death of Moses.
Mount Tabor(tā´bor), a wooded mountain in Palestine, six miles east of Nazareth, on the border of the plain of Esdraelon, according to a tradition, was the scene of the Transfiguration; and in the monastic ages it was peopled with hermits. Height, about one thousand eight hundred feet.
Mount Sinai(sī´nīorsī-nā-ī) and theSinaitic(sī-nȧ-it´ik)Peninsula. This peninsula, which, since 1907, has been included within the boundaries of Egypt, is situated between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Akaba. In the north of the peninsula is the desert Paran, a desolate limestone plateau, bounded on the south by a tract of low sandstone mountains, ravines, and valleys rich in minerals which had been worked as early as 3000 B. C. Then rises the barren, rugged, and majestic triangle of the Sinai Mountain (also called Horeb) on which, tradition asserts, the Law was given to Moses.
From very early times it seems to have been regarded as a sacred mountain, perhaps as dedicated to the Babylonian moon-god Sin. These peaks are over six thousand feet high. At the base is a broad plain where the Israelites may easily have encamped. In a valley on the northeast of the same mountain, stands the famous convent of St. Catharine, with its beautiful gardens, which was originally founded by the Emperor Justinian (527-565). It became celebrated in recent years by the discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus (the Greek version of the Old Testament and the Greek New Testament), made in it by Tischendorf in 1844. There are two other valleys in the same vicinity, both of which are comparatively fertile and well-watered. The rocks of this region are steep and jagged and richly colored. They are composed of granite, porphyry, diorite, and gneiss. A path of stone steps leads up from the convent to the summit. Holy places marked by crosses cover the mountain. Near the top of Jebel Musa stands a chapel dedicated to Elijah.