CHAPTER XVI.

THE LAND OF BENJAMIN.

North of Jerusalem lies a narrow district, which contains more places of interest than can, perhaps, be found in any other part of Palestine within an equal area.

This district was allotted to the tribe of Benjamin, and includes about two hundred square miles of hills, extending ten miles from Jerusalem to Bethel, and about twenty from the lower Beth Horon to the deserts above Jericho.

We are now able to draw, with a great amount of accuracy, the north boundary of Benjamin, from Bethel to Archi (’Ain ’Arîk), and thence to “Ataroth Adar, near the hill that lieth on the south side of the nether Bethoron,” exactly where we discovered the ruins of Ed Dârieh still existing. South of these limits are the famous towns Bethel, Ai, Michmash, Geba, Ramah, Nob, Mizpeh, Gibeon, with others of minor importance. To these places the present chapter is devoted.

It is clear from the Old Testament that the place where Jacob’s vision occurred was Bethel or Luz, as it was originally called, on the boundary of Ephraim and Benjamin. Later traditions have been busy with the site, and (as we have seen before) the Samaritans claim that the true place is on Gerizim, while in the twelfth century the sacred rock on the Temple Hill was held to be the Beth-el, or House of God, of the narrative in Genesis.

Bethel at the present day is one of the most desolate-looking places in Palestine; not from lack of water, for it has four good springs, but from the absence of soft soil on its rocky hills. All the neighbourhood is of grey, bare stone, or white chalk. The miserable fields are fenced in with stone walls, the hovels are rudely built of stone, the hill to the east is of hard rock, with only a few scattered fig-gardens, the ancient sepulchres are cut in a low cliff, and a great reservoir south of the village is excavated in rock. The place seems as it were turned to stone, and we can well imagine that the lonely patriarch found nothing softer than a stone for the pillow under his head, when on the bare hill side he slept, and dreamed of angels.

It is very remarkable that in this narrative the word “place” occurs in a manner which suggests that it is used with a special significance. Jacob came not to any city, but to a “certain place” (Gen. xxviii. 11), the stones of which formed his pillow.

The word “place” (Makom) occurs five times in the same chapter, and the place called Bethel is distinguished specially from the neighbouring city of Luz (verse 19). The same word (Makom) is used to denote the sacred places of the Canaanites (Deut. xii. 2), and in the Talmud to denote the shrines held to be lawful for Israel before the Temple was built.

It is thus, perhaps, a _sacred place_ that is intended as having been Jacob’s refuge on his way; and we at once recall the altar which Abraham raised between Bethel and Ai--towns which, as now identified, were only two miles apart. Abraham’s altar must have been close to the city of Luz, subsequently named from it Bethel, “the House of God;” and it was perhaps from the stones of this ancestral shrine that Jacob’s pillow was made.

Bethel continued to be a religious centre after the establishment of the Tabernacle at Shiloh, in the time of Phineas, grandson of Aaron. We find the Ark established--at least during the campaign against the men of Gibeah--at Bethel; for there can be no reasonable doubt that Josephus is right in supposing the place called in our version “the House of God,” to be the town of Bethel (Judg. xx. 26, 27; Ant. v. 2, 10), as will be seen by comparison of the strategical lines occupied by the besieged Benjamites of Gibeah, one of which was the “highway which goeth up to Bethel” (verse 31). Even in the time of Samuel, sacrifice seems to have been offered at Bethel (1 Sam. x. 3), and the establishment of a Calf Temple by Jeroboam at Bethel was thus no innovation, but merely the restoration of an ancient high place. The extraordinary mixture of true and false worship which thus seems to have occurred--Bethel being the school of the prophets of Jehovah, while the Calf Temple still stood there--is a subject well worthy of consideration.

The prophecy of Hosea, and that of Amos as well, connect Bethel and Bethaven in such a way as to make it appear that they were the same place. Such is the opinion of the Jewish commentators, and we may thus perhaps trace the origin of the present corruption of Beitîn for Bethel back to the early time of Jeroboam. Bethaven, however, means “house of naught,” and the title was originally given to the desert east of Bethel, because of its barren character, though in the prophecy there is a play on the word: “Gilgal (freedom) shall go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to naught” (Aven).

Another town of almost equal interest existed in the same neighbourhood, namely Ai, east of Bethel, a place which was quite unknown in the fourth century, but concerning the general position of which there is but little dispute. The various notices in the Bible (Gen. xii. 8; Josh.