CHAPTER I.

THE PROMISED LAND.

The way from Raphia to Gaza was travelled with very different feelings by the several members of our party.

Helon, as he proceeded, was constantly looking to the right, towards the hills of Judah, which rose black and dark in the starry night, to the eastward of the road which they travelled along the coast. His feelings grew more intense with every glance; passages from the Psalms and the Prophets perpetually rose to his lips; and all the fatigues of the journey over the stony and sandy soil were forgotten in the reflection, that every step brought him nearer to the Promised Land. The history of his people passed in review before his mind, and his imagination applied every thing around him to cherish the illusion. Instead of a caravan of Phœnician traders, he seemed to be in the pastoral encampments of Abraham; with Moses and the children of Israel in the wilderness; in the caravan of the queen of Sheba, when she came to visit Solomon; or amongst the exiles returning with Zerubbabel, to rebuild the ruined sanctuary.

Elisama was seated on his horse, his mind full of the glory of Israel which was about to be revealed; in the midst of the bitterness against the heathens, which was become a necessary excitement to his aged heart, and the inward ill-will which he harboured against Myron, he rejoiced in the triumph which he had gained over him by his narrative, which had been so complete, as to force the Greek, at last, to assent to the praises of Israel.

Myron’s feelings were of a very mixed kind, and some of them far from being pleasant. He felt the Jewish pride in all its force, and was perpetually tempted to keep it within bounds, by applying to it the keen edge of Attic wit. Yet when he reflected on the other hand, that the society of these Jews had enabled him to pass his time more pleasantly and instructively, than he would have done among the Phœnicians, and that the journey was now at an end, he thought it was not worth while to offend them, and so held his peace. He had a further reason for not wishing to come to a rupture with his fellow-travellers, that he might not lose the invitation to Jerusalem upon which he reckoned. For, notwithstanding all that was offensive to him, he could not but acknowledge, that the Jews were a people in the highest degree remarkable, and he had a great curiosity to see what they were in their native land, where he had often been told they could alone be fairly judged of.

With these feelings they came late at night to Gaza. Elisama, while the tents were erecting, paid the conductor of the caravan the sum agreed upon for the journey. As he intended, according to the ancient custom of his people, to make the journey to the passover on foot, he had already bargained with some one in the caravan for the purchase of the horses. They reposed for some hours, and rose again before the dawn.

The caravan still lay buried in profound slumber. By the time that the camels were loaded and themselves ready to depart, the morning began to dawn, and a singular spectacle was unfolded by it. The camels were crouching in a wide circle around the baggage, the horses, and the merchandise; and their long necks and little heads rose like towers above a wall. The men had encamped round fires or in tents. Most of the fires had burnt out, only here and there dying embers occasionally shot a flame, which feebly illuminated the singular groups around. Within the great circle all was still, save that the watchmen with their long staves were going their rounds, and calling their watchword in the stillness of the hour. In the distance were heard the hoarse sounds of the waves, breaking on the shore. On the other side of the camp was Gaza with its towers and ruins; and the fiery glow of morning was lightening up the scene of the fearful accomplishment of the word of prophecy. Gaza, once so populous, magnificent, and strong, when she committed the shameful outrage on Sampson, had no longer any gates at the spot where the mighty hero once lifted them up, and placed them on the hill opposite to Hebron.[75] Jeremiah had taken the wine-cup of fury from the hand of Jehovah, to cause the nations to drink of it to whom the Lord had sent him, and Gaza was amongst them, that they might reel and be mad because of the sword that he sent amongst them.[76] The shepherd of Tekoah had foretold this in yet plainer language.

Footnote 75:

Judg. xvi. 1-3.

Footnote 76:

Jer. xlvii.

Thus saith Jehovah, Three transgressions of Gaza have I passed unnoticed, But the fourth I cannot overlook. And I will send a fire on the walls of Gaza, Which shall devour the palaces thereof.—Amos i. 6, 7.

Zephaniah[77] had said, “Gaza shall be forsaken;” and last of all Zechariah[78] had declared,

Ashkelon shall see it and fear, Gaza also shall see it and grieve, The king shall perish from Gaza, And Ashkelon shall not be inhabited.

Footnote 77:

Zeph. ii. 4.

Footnote 78:

Zech. ix. 5.

What the prophets foretold against Gaza, which was one of the five principal cities of the south-west of Canaan, Alexander the Great had fulfilled. Her ruins bore witness also to the prowess of the later heroes of Israel, Jonathan and Simon. The city had been originally allotted to the tribe of Judah, and the Philistines never prospered in their unjust possession of it. It was the seat of the worship of Dagon, a monstrous idol, whose lower half had the form of a fish, and the upper of a woman. Helon regarded the city as a monument of Israel’s revenge, placed on the very confines of the Promised Land. To-day he was to enter that land, and it seemed as if this awful spectacle had been exhibited to him, to impress indelibly upon his mind the transition from the land of the heathen to the land of Jehovah.

Lost in these thoughts, he stood unconscious of what was going on around him. Myron placed himself beside him, and, for a long time, watched him with earnest curiosity. “In good truth,” he at last suddenly exclaimed, “this is oriental contemplation! Helon, thou thinkest on Jerusalem!” Helon, disagreeably startled from his sublime reflections, replied, “I was not thinking on Jerusalem, but on that city of the heathens, on which, as our prophet predicted, ‘baldness is come.’”

“It is indeed a revolting sight,” said Myron, “and your prophet’s anticipation has proved correct. But you are about to depart to-day for Jerusalem. How I wish I could accompany you, and enter this temple, whose magnificence I have heard you describe, along with the train of pilgrims to the passover!”

“You would find yourself,” said Helon, “in a more disagreeable situation, than even on the journey from Pelusium to Gaza.”

“I should be able to stand my ground nevertheless,” said Myron: “I must now however go to Sidon. But I have a plan to propose.” He then told him what his own occupations were, and suggested, that as they would probably be terminated about the time when Elisama and Helon would have celebrated the two festivals, he should join them at Jerusalem, and after visiting together some other parts of the Holy Land, they should return to Egypt in company. With the address of a Greek he contrived to make his proposal acceptable even to Elisama, who, offended as he was at his sarcasms upon the Jewish people, cherished a hope that by knowing them better he might be persuaded to become, if not a proselyte of righteousness, at least a proselyte of the gate. Helon was convinced, that no true peace was to be derived from all the boasted wisdom of the Greeks, and ardently desired that the friend of his youth, who had sought this peace with him in philosophy, might be brought to confess with him, that it was only to be found in the law of Jehovah; and Elisama had often observed that the scoffer is most easily converted into a worshipper.

The zeal for making proselytes, by which Israel was distinguished, may be easily accounted for. Accustomed, for nearly two thousand years, to believe, and on no less authority than that of God himself, that salvation should proceed from them, and in them all nations of the earth be blessed, they could not for a moment relinquish the desire of carrying this prediction into effect; at this time they were more peculiarly urged to it by the openly expressed veneration or secret acquiescence of the wisest men. Religious faith, although the most deeply seated in the breast of any of our sentiments, is, singular as it may appear, that which we are most eager in communicating to others. Whatever too has been long suppressed, breaks forth with redoubled force when the obstacle is removed. Besides, the religious sentiments of the Jews were not, like those of the heathens, the speculations of human reason, but _truths_, confirmed by the sanction of God; and their zeal in making proselytes was not the vain desire to swell the numbers of a sect, but to deliver those who were under the dominion of error.

Myron and our travellers took leave of each other, in the hope of meeting after a few months. He went through the camp to seek for company as far as Tyre, and they took the road to Hebron.

From Gaza two roads conduct to Jerusalem. One passes by Eleutheropolis and the plain of Sephela; the other through the hills by Hebron. Although the former was the easier and more customary, Elisama preferred the latter. He had a friend in Hebron, whom he had not seen for many years, and in whose company he wished to perform the pilgrimage; and he was desirous of making Helon’s first entrance into the Land of Promise as solemn and impressive as possible. By taking the easier road, they must have gone a long way through the country of the Philistines, and not have been joined by pilgrims, till they reached Morescheth, and then only in small numbers. On the other road, they entered immediately on the Jewish territory, and their way conducted them through scenes adorned with many an historical remembrance. They had not proceeded far inward from the sea, in the direction of the river Besor, when they reached the confines of Judah; they stood at the foot of its hills, and the land of the heathen lay behind them. Helon seemed to feel for the first time what home and native country mean. In Egypt, where he had been born and bred, he had been conscious of no such feeling; for he had been taught to regard himself as only a sojourner there. Into this unknown, untrodden native country he was about to enter, and before he set his foot upon it, at the first sight of it, the breeze seemed to waft from its hills a welcome to his home. “Land of my fathers,” he exclaimed, “Land of Promise, promised to me also from my earliest years!” and quickened his steps to reach it. He felt the truth of the saying, that Israel is Israel only in the Holy Land. “Here,” said Elisama, “is the boundary of Judah.” Helon, unable to speak, threw himself on the sacred earth, kissed it and watered it with his tears, and Sallu, letting go the bridles of the camels, did the same. Elisama stood beside them, and as he stretched his arms over them, and in the name of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, blessed their going out and their coming in, his eyes too overflowed with tears, and his heart seemed to warm again, as with the renewal of a youthful love. See, he exclaimed,

The winter is past, the rain is over and gone, The flowers appear on the earth; The time of the singing of birds is come, The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The figtree putteth forth her green figs, The vines give fragrance from their blossoms.—Cant. ii. 10.

They proceeded slowly on their way; Helon gazed around him on every side, and thought he had never seen so lovely a spring. The latter rains had ceased, and had given a quickening freshness to the breezes from the hills, such as he had never known in the Delta. The narcissus and the hyacinth, the blossoms of the apricot and peach, shed their last fragrance around. The groves of terebinth, the oliveyards and vineyards stood before them in their living green: the corn, swollen by the rain, was ripening fast for the harvest, and the fields of barley were already yellow. The wide meadows, covered with grass for the cattle, the alternation of hill and valley, the rocks hewn out in terraces, and filled with earth and planted, offered a constant variety of delightful views. You might see that this was a land, the dew of which Jehovah had blessed, in which the prayer of Isaac over Jacob had been fulfilled, when the patriarch said, “God give thee of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine.”[79] Helon drank of the pure, clear mountain stream, whose sparkling reflection seemed to him like a smile from a parent’s eyes on a returning wanderer, and thought the sweet water of the Nile, so praised by the Egyptians, could bear no comparison with it. Elisama reminded him of the words of the psalm:

“Thou lookest down upon our land and waterest it, And makest it full of sheaves. The river of God is full of water. Thou preparest corn and tillest the land, Thou waterest its furrows and softenest its clods; Thou moistenest it with showers, thou blessest its springing, Thou crownest the year with thy blessing, And thy footsteps drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, And the hills are encompassed with rejoicing: The pastures are clothed with flocks, And the fields are covered with corn: All shout for joy and sing.”—Ps. lxv.

Footnote 79:

Gen. xxvii. 28.

Helon replied to him from another psalm:

The springs arise among the valleys, They run among the hills. Here the thirsty wild beast cools itself, The wild ass quenches his thirst. The fowls of heaven dwell beside them, And sing among the branches. He watereth the hills from his clouds above; The fruit of his works satisfieth the earth. He maketh grass to grow for cattle, And herb for the service of man, Preparing bread from the earth And wine that maketh glad man’s heart; The fragrance of the oil for ointment, And bread that giveth strength. The cedars of Lebanon, tall as heaven, He has planted, he watereth them!—Ps. civ.

“This,” exclaimed both together, “is indeed the Land of Promise;” and Helon called to mind the words of the prophet Ezekiel, “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, I lifted up my hand to bring them out of Egypt into a land which I had promised for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land that is the glory of all lands.”[80]

Footnote 80:

Ezek. xx. 6.

These words Helon repeated incessantly as he proceeded. The pure mountain air, which he had never drawn before, inspired the body, as the feeling of home refreshed the mind. This moment, and that in which he had returned to the law, moments of deep and indelible interest, seemed to rise like lofty summits, far above the ordinary level of the events of life. When he thought on the narrative of his uncle, he was inclined to compare the former of these events with the terrific annunciation of the law from Sinai—the latter, with the joy of Israel, when, under the command of Joshua, they crossed the Jordan, and first set their feet on the Promised Land.

During the whole of this journey to Hebron, external impressions seemed to have no other power over him, than to awaken trains of thought, connected with the subject by which his whole soul was occupied. When Elisama pointed out to him Minois and Gerar, which lay far to the south; and reminded him that Gerar was the place where Abraham had involved himself in difficulties by the concealment of the truth from Abimelech;[81] and where the pious Asa had defeated the Ethiopians;[82] these hints were sufficient for his imagination to cover the plains with the flocks of the patriarch, and the hosts of the virtuous king of Judah.

Footnote 81:

Gen. xxvi.

Footnote 82:

2 Chron. xiv. 13.

They passed near Beersheba, which had given rise to the expression so common in scripture history, “from Dan to Beersheba,” to denote the whole extent of the Holy Land, from north to south. Beersheba was the frontier town on the south, distant from Dan a hundred and sixty sabbath-days’ journies, or fifty-three leagues. Elisama related how Abraham and Isaac had dug a well here, and called it Beersheba, in memory of the oaths exchanged between them and Abimelech;[83] how Jehovah had here appeared to Jacob, and permitted him to go down to Egypt to his beloved Joseph;[84] how Elias the Tishbite had fled hither from the face of Ahab and Jezebel;[85] how Samuel’s sons had judged the people here;[86] and how, in latter times, it had become a seat of idolatrous worship under Uzziah; in consequence of which, Amos had given the warning, “Pass not to Beersheba,”[87] and had denounced calamity on those who say, “The worship of Beersheba liveth.”[88] At the return from the captivity this was one of the first cities which the exiles repeopled. Notwithstanding the length of the journey, which they performed on foot, Elisama seemed to feel no fatigue; and every hill or valley, every town or village, which they passed, gave him fresh occasion to produce his inexhaustible store of historical recollections. Their road lay by Debir, called also sometimes Kiriath Sanna, sometimes Kiriath Sepher; and it reminded him of the heroic prize, the hand of his own daughter Achsa, which Caleb had proposed to the man who should conquer it.[89]

Footnote 83:

Gen. xxi. 3.; xxvi. 33.

Footnote 84:

Gen. xlvi. 1.

Footnote 85:

1 Kings xix. 3.

Footnote 86:

1 Sam. viii. 2.

Footnote 87:

Amos v. 5.

Footnote 88:

Amos viii. 14.

Footnote 89:

Judges i. 12.

At length Hebron rose before them, and each approached it with characteristic feelings. Helon viewed it only as having been for seven years the city of David’s residence;[90] and could have imagined, that the tones of the sweet singer’s harp still lingered about its walls. Elisama longed to see the friend of his youth, and to repose under his hospitable roof. There was an unusual commotion beneath the towering palms at the gate and in all the streets. It was evident that they were preparing to depart for Jerusalem on the morrow.

Footnote 90:

2 Sam. ii. 11.

They were received with the cordial welcome of early but long separated friends. Elisama had scarcely laid himself down, to have his feet washed, when the discourse between him and his host flowed as freely as if the old man had only walked a sabbath-day’s journey. Helon observed, that here the ancient custom was preserved of crouching upon the carpet at meals; while in Alexandria they reclined on Grecian cushions. He fell asleep, and night prolonged the dreams of day.