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The Bible As History
by Werner Keller

Contents

in 4 Parts
Part 1 - to page 186
Part 2 - to page 276
Part 3- to page 399
Part 4- Pictures & Figures
still being populated with illustrations

PAGE
CHAPTER
15

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

19 INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW REVISED EDITION
21 INTRODUCTI0N TO THE FIRST EDITION
DIGGING UP THE OLD TESTAMENT
I -- The coming of the Patriarchs from Abraham to Jacob
27 Chapter 1 -- IN THE "FERTILE CRESCENT" -- 4,000 years ago - Continents asleep - The great cradle of our civilisation - Culture in the Ancient East - Staged Towers and Pyramids had been built long before - Giant plantations on the banks of canals - Arab tribes attack from the desert.
31 Chapter 2 - UR OF THE CHALDEES -- Station on the Bagdad railway - A Staged Tower of bricks - Ruins with Biblical names - Archaeologists in search of scriptural sites - A consul with a pick - The archaeologist on the throne of Babylon - Expedition to Tell al Muqayyar - History books from rubble - Tax receipts on clay - Was Abraham a city dweller?
43 Chapter 3 -- DIGGING UP THE FLOOD -- The graves of the Sumerian kings - A puzzling layer of clay - Traces of the Flood under desert sands - A catastrophic flood about 4000 B.C.
50 Chapter 4 -- A FLOOD-STORY FROM OLD BABYLONIA -- The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible - Twelve clay tablets from Nineveh - An ancient epic from the library of Ashurbanipal - Utnapishtim, a Sumerian Noah? - The secret of Mt. Ararat - A gigantic ship in a museum of ice - Expeditions in quest of the Ark.
59 Chapter 5 -- ABRAHAM LIVED IN THE KINGDOM OF MARI -- A stone corpse - Lieut. Cabane reports a find - A Syrian Tell has important visitors - King Lamgi-Mari introduces himself - Professor
Parrot discovers an unknown empire - A Royal Palace with 260 apartments and courtyards - 23,600 clay tablets have survived for 4,000 years - Desert police report the "Benjamites" - Rebecca's home - A flourishing city - And Nuzi ... ?
70

Chapter 6 -- THE LONG JOURNEY TO CANAAN -- 600 miles by the caravan route - Nowadays four visas are required - The land of purple - Punitive expeditions against "Sand-dwellers" - Proud seaports with a troublesome hinterland - An Egyptian best-seller aboutCanaan - Sinuhe praises the Good Land - Jerusalem on magic vases - Strongholds - Sellin finds Shechem - Abraham chooses the high road.

82 Chapter 7 -- ABRAHAM AND LOT IN THE LAND OF PURPLE -- Famine in Canaan - A Family Portrait of the patriarchal age - Permit of access to the Nile grazings - The mystery of Sodom and Gomorrah - Mr. Lynch investigates the Dead Sea - The great fissure - Did the Vale of Siddim take a headlong plunge? - Pillars of salt at Jebel Usdum.

I I -- In the Realm of the Pharaohs From Joseph to Moses

97 Chapter 8 -- JOSEPH IN EGYPT -- Had Potiphar a prototype? - The Orbiney Papyrus - Hyksos rulers on the Nile - Joseph, official of an occupying power - Corn silos, an Egyptian patent - Evidence of seven years famine - Assignments to Goshen - "Bahr Yusuf": Joseph's Canal? - "Jacob-Her" on scarabs.
108 Chapter 9 -- FOUR HUNDRED YEARS' SILENCE -- Reawakening on the Nile - Thebes instigates revolt - Rout of the Hyksos - Egypt becomes a world power - Indian civilisation in Mitanni - The "Sons of Heth" on the Halys - Pharaoh's widow in quest of a mate - The first non-aggression pact in the world - Hittite bridal procession through Canaan.
118 Chapter 10 -- FORCED LABOUR IN PITHOM AND RAAMSES -- Joseph had died a long time ago - A story in pictures from a prince's tomb - Pithom labour camp in Egyptian texts - The royal seat is transferred to the delta - Ramesses II - A builder's enthusiasm and vanity lead to a fraud - Montet unearths the bond -city of Raamses - Moses wrote his name "MS" - A Mesopotamian story about a baby in the bulrushes - Moses emigrates to Midian - Plagues are no strangers to Egypt.
III -- Fory Years in the Wilderness From the Nile to the Jordan
125 Chapter 11 -- ON THE ROAD TO SINAI -- Departure from Raamses - Two possible sites for the "Miracle of the Sea" - Traces of fords beside the Suez Canal - Three days without water - Swarms of quails at the migration season - An expedition clears up the mystery of manna - Egyptian mining centre in Sinai - The alphabet at the Temple of Hathor.
135

Chapter 12 -- AT THE MOUNTAIN OF MOSES -- The "Pearl of Sinai" - Israel was 6,ooo strong - Striking water from rock - Practical experience in desert life - Was the Burning Bush a gas-plant? -The valley of the monks and hermits - The great miracle.

142 Chapter 13 -- UNDER DESERT SKIES -- Sinai -150 miles to Kadesh - Two springs at the chief halting-place - Scouts sent out to Hebron - The bunch of grapes was a vine - Foreign races - Peasant woman finds the Amarna Tablets - Letters from Indo-Aryan Canaanite princes - Scouts' report leads to a new decision - The "wilderness" of the Bible was steppe.
151 Chapter 14 -- ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE PROMISED LAND -- Rise of a new generation - Change of plan - Transit permit through Edom requested - Pressing on through Transjordan - King Og's "iron bedstead" - Dolmen discovered near Amman - Moab sends its daughters - Baal worship in Canaan - Moses sees the Promised Land - Camping opposite Jericho.

IV -- The Battle for the Promised Land From Joshua to Saul

157 Chapter 15 -- ISRAEL INVADES -- The world about 1200 B.C. - The weakness of Canaan - The first iron merchants - The ford across the Jordan - The stronghold of Jericho, the oldest city in the world - Scholars quarrel over broken walls - A trail of fire - Pharaoh mentions "Israel" by name for the first time - Excavations at Hazor - Graves at the Village ofJoshua.
169 Chapter 16 -- UNDER DEBORAH AND GIDEON -- Israel settles down - Pioneering in the mountains - Peasants' huts
instead of palaces - Deborah incites to revolt - Clash in the plain of
Jezreel - Victory over the "chariots of iron" - Israelite crockery at Megiddo - Marauders from the desert - Traces of Abimelech's destruction of Shechem - Gideon's successful tactics - First battle in history against a camel-corps - A new breed of long-distance carriers.
174 Chapter 17 -- THE WARRIORS FROM CAPHTOR -- Krethi and Plethi - Invasion by the "Sea Peoples" - The great trek from the Aegean - Triumphal progress with ox-waggons and ships - The Hittite empire disappears - Seaports in flames on the coast of Canaan - General mobilisation on the Nile - Pharaoh Ramesses III saves Egypt - The great land and sea engagement - Interrogation in P.O.W. camps - Life size portraits of the Philistines.
179 Chapter 18 -- UNDER THE YOKE OF THE PHILISTINES -- Philistines on the coast - Swan pattern pottery - Beer mugs with filters - Carefully guarded iron monopoly - Philistines occupy the high-
lands - Traces of the burning of Shiloh - Choosing a king from dire
necessity - Allenby successfully uses Saul's tactics - Surprising the
Turks - Albright finds Saul's castle - Two temples in Beth-Shan - The end of Saul.
V -- When Israel was an Empire-From David to Solomon

187

 

Chapter 19 -- DAVID, A GREAT KING -- A man of genius - From armour-bearer to monarch - Unintentional military aid for Assyria - From the Orontes to Ezion-Geber - Revenge at Beth-Shan - New buildings with casemated walls - Finding of the Pool of Gibeon - Jerusalem fell by a stratagem - Warren discovers a shaft leading to the city - The Sopher kept the "Imperial Annals" - Was David called David? - Ink as a novelty - Palestine's climate is unpropitious for keeping records.
197 Chapter 20 -- WAS SOLOMON "A COPPER-KING"? --
Expedition to the Gulf of Aqabah - Iron ore and malachite - Glueck
discovers Ezion-Geber - Desert storms used as bellows - The Pittsburgh
of old Israel - Shipyards on the Red Sea - Hiram brought the timber - Ships' captains from Tyre -The mysterious land of Ophir - An Egyptian portrait of the queen of Punt - U.S. archaeologists buy a Tell - A model dig at Megiddo - The fateful plain of Jezreel - Royal stables with 450 stalls?
214 Chapter 21 -- THE QUEEN OF SHEBA AS A BUSINESS PARTNER -- "Arabia Felix", the mysterious land - Death-march of 10,000
Romans - Number One exporter of spices - First news of Marib - Halevy and Glaser have a dangerous adventure - When the
great dam burst - American expedition to Yemen - The temple of the moon in Sheba - Camels: the new long distance transport - Export talks with Solomon.
220 Chapter 22 -- ISRAEL'S COLOURFUL DAILY LIFE -- Israel's love of ornamentation - Secrets of the boudoirs of Palestine - Sleeping with myrrh and aloes - The Balsam gardens of Jericho - Mastic, a favourite chewing gum - Perfumes of Canaan - Did the Egyptians invent the bed? - An ostracon describes a cloak being taken in pledge - Noisy flour-mills.
VI -- Two Kings - Two Kingdoms From Rehoboam to Jehoiachin
227 Chapter 23 -- THE SHADOW OF A NEW WORLD POWER -- The Empire splits - Frontier posts between Israel and Judah - Napoleon reads Shishak's report on Palestine - Samaria, the northern capital - Traces of Ahab's "ivory palace" - A mysterious "third man" - Arabs blow up victory monument in Moab - Mesha the mutton-king's song of triumph - Assyria steps in - The black obelisk from Nimrud - King Jehu's portrait in Assyria - Consignments of wine for Jeroboam II - Uzziah's palace - The prophet Amos warns in vain - The walls of Samaria are strengthened to 33 feet.
242 Chapter 24 -- THE END OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM -- Pul the soldier becomes 'I"iglath-Pileser III - King Pekah mentioned at Hazor - Assyrian governors over Israel - Samaria's three-year defiance - Consul Botta looks for Nineveh - The bourgeois king opens the first Assyrian mseum - Searching for evidence by moonlight - The library of Ashurbanipal - Deportation of a people.
252 Chapter 25 -- JUDAH UNDER THE YOKE OF ASSYRIA -- Hopes aroused by Sargon's dtath - A fig poultice cures king
Hezekiah - A well-tried Ancient Eastern remedy - Merodach-Baladan: gardner and rebel - Secret armaments in Judah - Aqueduct through the rocks of Jerusalem - Inscription describes Hezekiah's tunnel - The fate of Lachish in stone relief - Traces of Assyrian battering-rams in the ruins - A puzzling retreat - Herodotus' story of the king with the
mouse - Starkey finds a plague-grave - Sennacherib describes the siege of Jerusalem.
263 Chapter 26 -- THE SEDUCTIVE RELIGIONS OF CANAAN -- The "abominations of the heathen" - Harsh words from the prophets - Philo of Byblos: a witness - Eusebius, the Christian Father, finds no one to believe him - Ploughman stumbles upon Ugarit - A powerful seaport disappears - Schaeffer digs at the "Head of Fennel" - The library in the priest's house - Three scholars decipher an unknown alphabet.
270

Chapter 27 -- THE END OF NINEVEH AS A WORLD POWER -- Ashurbanipal plunders Thebes - An empire stretching from the Nile to the Persian Gulf - The "great and noble Asnapper" - Big game hunting with bow and arrow- Assyria's strength is exhausted - Crushed between two powers - Medes and Chaldeans arm - Scythian hordes in Palestine - Nineveh sinks in ruins - The "Fertile Crescent" breathes again - A Biblical slip of the pen - Gadd's discovery in London - Nebuchadnezzar, crown prince of Babylon.

Part 3 of 4

277 Chapter 28 -- LAST DAYS OF JUDAH -- First deportation - King Jehoiachin in Babylonian court records - Discovery in the basement of the Berlin Museum - Nebuchadnezzar on the conquest of Jerusalem - Second punitive campaign - Despatches on clay - Starkey's tragic death - Incendiary technique of Babylonian engineers - A clean slate for the archaeologists.
VII -- From the Exile to the Maccabean Kingdom
From Ezekiel to John Hyrcanus
287 Chapter 29 -- EDUCATION THROUGH EXILE -- Good advice from the prophet Jeremiah - The firm of Murashu and Sons, Nippur - Interest 20% - Farmers and shepherds turned traders - Koldewey excavates Babylon - A town plan like New York - The greatest city in the ancient world - Tower of Babel 300 feet high - Chamber of Commerce - on the Euphrates.
294 Chapter 30 -- SUNSET IN THE ANCIENT ORIENT -- The old world about 500 B.C. - Last spasms before the end - Escape into the past - Nabonidus restores ancient buildings - First museum in the world at Ur - Semitic empires make their exit - The birth of the west.
297 Chapter 31 -- CYRUS, KING OF PERSIA -- Two famous dreams - Cyrus unites Media and Persia - The Writing on the Wall - Belshazzar was merely crown prince - Peaceful entry into Babylon - Persian toleration.
301 Chapter 32 -- RETURN TO JERUSALEM --
The edict of Cyrus - The trek of the 42,000 - A caravan of fateful significance - Starting work on the ruins - A lonely grave in Pasargadae - Rebuilding the Temple - The Persian Empire: from the Nile to
India - Duncan finds Nehemiah's work - The secret of the "thick water" - A theocratic state - Judah coins stamped with the Athenian owl - A Persian province for two centuries.
307 Chapter 33 -- UNDER GREEK INFLUENCE -- Alexander the Great in Pales tine - Causeway forces capitulation of Tyre - Siege towers 160 feet high - Alexandria: the new metropolis - Ptolemies occupy Judah - 72 scholars translate the Bible - Pentateuch in Greek - The Septuagint came from Pharos - A stadium below
the Temple - High Priest in "gaming house" - Jewish athletes give offence.
315 Chapter 34 -- THE BATTLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY -- Tax official plunders Jerusalem - Worship of Zeus in the Temple - The
revolt of the Maccabees - The Battle of the Elephants at Bethlehem - Americans find Beth-Zur - Coins from Antioch among the
rubble - Canteen supplies from Rhodes - Pompey storms Jerusalem - Judah becomes a Roman province.
DIGGING UP THE NEW TESTAMENT

I -- Jesus of Nazareth

321 Chapter 35 -- PALESTINE ON MARE NOSTRUM --
A Province of the Roman Empire - Greek cities on the Jordan - The New Testament - The governor appears in history - A census every 14 years.
325 Chapter 36 -- THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM -- A suggestion by Origen - Halley's comet over China - Kepler's observations in Prague - Astronomical tablets found at Sippar-Babylonian astronomers' records - Modern astronomical calculations - December frost in Bethlehem.
334 Chapter 37 -- NAZARETH IN GALILEE -- Death of King Herod - "The most cruel tyrant" - Unrest in the land - Checking Jerusalem's finances - Sabinus steals the Temple treasures - Varus crucifies 2,000 Jews - " Nazarene" or "Nazarite"?
338 Chapter 38 -- JOHN THE BAPTIST -- The witness of Josephus -A forbidden marriage - Herod Antipas orders
an arrest - The castle of Machaerus in Moab - The dungeon of death - Princess Salome - Capernaum "on the sea" - Ruins in a eucalyptus grove - The place where Jesus taught.
342 Chapter 39 -- THE LAST JOURNEY, TRIAL AND CRUCIFIXION -- Detour through Transjordan - The tax-collector of Jericho - View from the Mount of Olives - Arrest on the Mount of Olives - The "clubs" of the high priests - The Procurator Pontius Pilate - Vincent discovers the "Pavement" - Scourging in the courtyard of the Antonia - "The most cruel form of execution" - A crown of Syrian Christ-thorn - A drink to stupify - Heart failure as the cause of death - Crurifragium hastens the end - A solitary tomb under the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - Tacitus mentions "Christus" - The evidence of Suetonius.
354 Chapter 40 -- THE TURIN SHROUD -- Books from Constantinople - Discovery in the photographic negative - Tests by forensic medical experts - A scientific proof of authenticity?
II -- In the days of the apostles
357 Chapter 41 -- IN THE STEPS OF ST. PAUL -- The Tentmaker from Tarsus - Triumphal arch in Antioch - Galatia, a Roman province - Wood digs in Ephesus - The temple of Artemis - The ruins of the gateway of Philippi - In ancient Corinth - A meat-market with a cooling system - "The Hebrew Synagogue" - A prisoner on the way Rome.
364 Chapter 42 -- THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM -- Rebellion - The Jewish War - Fighting in Galilee - General Titus - -80,000 Romans advance - Order to attack - Parade outside the gates - 500 crucifixions daily - Jerusalem sealed off - The spectre of famine - Castle of Antonia taken - The Temple in flames - The city is raised - Triumph in Rome.
374 THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS -- A lost lamb - The Dead Sea Scrolls - Harding and de Vaux in Wadi Qumran -
Archbishop Samuel goes to Chicago - Nuclear physicists assist
with the dating - Testing linen in the "Atomic Clock" - A book of Isaiah 2,000 years old - A prophetic roll in Jesus' day - A mysterious flood of documents - In the valley of the pirate-diggers - A text that corresponds after 2,000 years.
383 REBUILDING WITH THE HELP OF THE BIBLE -- Economic planning with the help of the Old Testament - The wells of the patriarchs provide for the settlers - " Honey out of the rock" - Stone walls to collect dew - Digging again in Solomon's mines - Pioneering on Bibilical pattern.
387 POSTCRIPT TO THE REVISED EDITION BY JOACHIM REHORK
394 BIBLIOGRAPHY --
399 GENERAL INDEX

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Publisher of the
"Watchman, What of the Night?" (WWN)
William H. Grotheer, Editor of Research & Publication for the ALF
- 1970s
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ALF SHORT STUDIES - William H. Grotheer -
"Another Comforter", study on the Holy Spirit
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From a WWN letter to a reader: RE: Lakes of Fire - 2 lakes of fire.
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Interpretative History of the Doctrine of the Incarnation as Taught by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, An
- William H. Grotheer

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- William H. Grotheer

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 - William H. Grotheer

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OTHER BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS & ARTICLES:

Additional Various Studies --
"Saving Faith" - Dr. E. J. Waggoner
"What is Man" The Gospel in Creation - "The Gospel in Creation"
"A Convicting Jewish Witness", study on the Godhead - David L. Cooper D.D.

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Bible As History - Werner Keller

Place of the Bible In Education, The - Alonzo T. Jones

Facts of Faith - Christian Edwardson

Individuality in Religion - Alonzo T. Jones

Letters to the Churches - M. L. Andreasen

"Is the Bible Inspired or Expired?" - J. J. Williamson

Sabbath, The - M. L. Andreasen

Sanctuary Service, The
- M. L. Andreasen

So Much In Common - WCC/SDA

Daniel and the Revelation - Uriah Smith

Spiritual Gifts. The Great Controversy, between Christ and His Angels, and Satan and his Angels - Ellen G. White

Canons of the Bible, The - Raymond A. Cutts

Under Which Banner? - Jon A. Vannoy

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"Watchman,
What of the Night?"
( WWN) is a thought paper that was published monthly
continuously from Jan, 1968 to the end of Dec. 2006 . by the Adventist Laymen's Foundation of Mississippi, Inc.(ALF), with William H. Grotheer as the Editor of Research & Publication.

Due to his failing health, Elder Grotheer requested that ALF of Canada continue publishing thoughts through its website www.AdventistAlet.com which now has developed into frequent Blog Thought articles plus all of the Foundation's historical published works written and audio.

As of 2010, with the official closing of the ALF of USA , The Adventist Laymen's Foundation of Canada with its website www.Adventist Alert.com is the only officially operating ALF branch established by Elder Grotheer worldwide.

We are thankful for the historical legacy that is now available through

The Adventist Laymen's Foundation of Canada, POB 8255,
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The Nov. 1977 issue discusses "What is the "Watchman What of the Night?"

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The Bible As History
by Werner Keller

Part 2 of 4

2nd Revised Edition
Translated from the German by William Neil
Revised and with a postscript by Joachim Rehork
New material translated from the German by B. H. Rasmussen
WILLIAM MORROW AND COMPANY, INC. New York 1981

 

p 142 -- CHAPTER 13 -- UNDER DESERT SKIES -- Sinai - 150 miles to Kadesh - Two springs at the chief halting-place - Scouts sent out to Hebron - The bunch of grapes was a vine - Foreign races - Peasant woman finds the Amarna Tablets - Letters from Indo-Aryan Canaanite princes - Scouts' report leads to a new decision - The "wilderness" of the Bible was steppe.

And the children of Israel took their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai - Num. 10.

Israel had pledged itself to believe in one God and his laws. The portable palladium that they had constructed for him - the Ark of the Covenant - had been made out of acacia wood (Ex. 25:10), which is still indigenous to Sinai and widely used.

FIG. 22 - The Ark of the Covenant with Cherubim and carrying-poles. (Reconstruction.)

For almost a year they had lingered at Mt. Sinai. Now they set out again, heading north for Canaan. Kadesh, the next stage, which is a landmark in the long desert wanderings of the children of Israel, lies 150 miles from Sinai as the crow flies.

This stretch too can be accurately traced on the basis of the very precise topographical details given in the Bible. The route lies along the west side of the Gulf of Aqabah to the "Wilderness of Paran" (Num. 12:16) - now Badiet et-Tin, i.e. "Wilderness of Loneliness" - and then continues along its eastern edge. Among the halts made on this journey (Num. 33:16-36) Hazeroth and Ezion-Geber can be identified with certainty. Hazeroth is the present-day Ain Huderah, which lies near the

p 143 -- Gulf. Ezion-Geber lies at the topmost point of the Gulf of Aqabah and is the place which was later to become a centre for shipping and industry in the days of King Solomon (I Kings 9:26).

As they made their way along the shores of the Gulf the "miracle" of the quails was repeated. Once more it was springtime, the time of bird migration, and again the description is true to nature: "And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp" (Num. 11:31).

And they removed from Ezion-Geber, and pitched in the wilderness of Zin which is Kadesh - Num. 33:36.

Below Hebron the hill country of Judah falls away into a fairly flat plain, the southern part of which, towards the frequently mentioned "Brook of Egypt", which is a ramification of wadis, is always very poorly supplied with water (Num- 34:5; Josh. 15:4; I Kings 8:65). This is the Negev, the Biblical "Land of the South" (Num. 13:17). Amid innumerable wadis - dried-up river beds which only run with water in the rainy season during the winter months - lies Kadesh. The old name Kadesh is preserved in the name of the little spring "Ain Qedeis", from which passing Bedouins water their cattle. But this trickle of spring water can hardly have been sufficient to provide for 6,000 Israelites and their flocks for any length of time. Only about 5 miles to the north-west of Kadesh, however, lies the most ample supply of water in the whole area, "Ain el-Qudeirat". Wadi Qudeirat has this to thank for its fertility. It was from here that the children of Israel saw in the distance the land that had been promised to them, of which as yet they had been able to form no clear picture. It may be that their hasty departure from Egypt had prevented them from finding out about it before they left. Palestine was so well known to the inhabitants of the Nile country that anyone who was lacking in detailed knowledge of it was reckoned to be lacking in proper education. Aman-Appa, a "commissioned scribe of the army" under Ramesses II, was even ridiculed for his ignorance about Palestine. Hori, an officer of the royal stables, replies to a letter from him in an extremely satirical vein and puts his geographical knowledge to the test: "Your letter is overloaded with big words. You have asked for it and you shall have it - and more than you bargained for. What we say is: If what you say is true, come and let us test you. We shall harness a horse for you which will bring you as fast as any jackal can run. Let us see what you can do. Have you not seen the country of Upe near Damascus? Don't you know its peculiarities, or those of its river? Have you not been to Kadesh? Have you never found your way to the Lebanon where the sky is dark in broad daylight? It is overgrown with cypresses, oaks and cedars which rise sky-high. I shall also mention a mysterious city, Byblos by name. What does it look like? Tell me too about Sidon and Sarepta. They talk about another city that lies in

p 144 -- the sea, the port of Tyre is its name. Water is carried to it by ship. If you go to Jaffa you will find that the fields are green. Go... and look for the pretty girl who is in charge of the vineyards. She will accept you as her mate and grant you her her favours.... You will be drowsy and indolent.

They will steal ... your bow, your knife, your quiver. Your reins will be slashed in the darkness ... your chariot will be smashed to pieces. But you will say: Bring me food and drink, I am happy here! They will pretend they are deaf and pay no attention. Come with me south to the region of Akka. Where is the hill of Shechem? Can this clever scribe tell me how to get to Hazor? What is special about its river? Now let me ask you about some other towns. Tell me what Kjn near Megiddo looks like, describe Rehob to me, give me a picture of Bethshan and Kiriath-El. Let me know how to get past Megiddo. How does one cross the Jordan? You see," concludes Hori, officer of the royal stables, "I have taken you through the whole of Palestine ... have a good look at it, so that in future you will be able to describe it properly, and ... you will.... be made a councillor." Government officials, soldiers, merchants had at least some clear notion of Palestine. Moses, who belonged to a poor shepherd folk, had first to find out about this country. He sent out scouts.

And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them, Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain: and see the land, what it is; and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many - Num. 13:17-18.

Among the twelve scouts was Joshua, a man with great gifts as a strategist, as later became plain during the conquest of Canaan. They chose as the best spot to spy out the land the country round Hebron in the south of Judah. Forty days later the men reported back to Moses. As proof that they had done their job they brought fruit from the area they had scrutinised: figs and pomegranates. Incredulous astonishment greeted one gigantic bunch of grapes, cut at the "Brook of Eshcol", for "they bare it between two upon a staff" (Num. 13:23). Posterity is equally sceptical because the narrative speaks of only one cluster. Surely it must have been a whole vine with all its fruit. The spies would cut it down with the grapes on it to keep them fresher. At all events the place of their origin according to the Bible is reliable. "Brook of Eshcol" means "Valley of Grapes"; it lies south-west of Hebron and even today this district is rich in vines. Fine heavy bunches of from 10-12 pounds are no rarity. The scouts made their report and described Canaan, like Sinuhe 650 years earlier, as a land that "floweth with milk and honey", only "the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled and very great" (Num. 13:27, 28; Deut. 1:28).

In their recital of the different inhabitants of the country they men-

p 145 -- tion some we already know, Hittites, Amorites, Jebusites in and around Jerusalem, Canaanites and Amalekites with whom Israel had already come into conflict in Sinai. They also mention the "children of Anak", which is supposed to mean the "children of the giants" (Num. 13:22, 28, 33), "Anak" might mean "long necked", and that is as much as the experts can tell us. It has been surmised that these "giants" are possibly survivals of ancient pre-Semitic elements in the population but there is no certainty in the matter.

Actually there were people from other countries living in Canaan at that time who must have been quite unknown to Israelites coming from Egypt. Whose "children" they were, they intimated to posterity themselves on clay tablets which were accidentally discovered by a peasant woman at Tell el-Amarna   1   in 1887. Further investigation produced eventually a collection of 377 documents in all. These are cuneiform letters from the royal archives of Amenophis III and his son Akhnaten who built himself a new capital at El-Amarna on the Nile. The tablets contain correspondence from the princes of Palestine, Phoenicia and Southern Syria to the Foreign Office of both Pharaohs. They are written in Akkadian, the diplomatic language of the second millennium B.C. Most of the writings are full of typically Canaanite words, some of them are in fact written almost exclusively in this dialect. This priceless find threw light for the first time on conditions in Palestine in the 15th and 14th centuries B.C.

One of the letters runs: "To the King, my Lord, my Sun, my God, say: Thus (says) Suwardata, thy servant, the servant of the King and the dust under his feet, the ground on which thou dost tread: At the feet of the King, my Lord, the Sun of Heaven, seven times, seven times I prostrated myself, on my belly and on my back...."

This is only the introduction. Nor is it in any way extravagant. On the contrary it is extremely formal, in accordance with contemporary protocol. Suwardata then comes to the matter in hand: "The King, my Lord, should know that the Habiru have risen in the lands which the God of the King, my Lord, has given me, and that I have beaten them, and the King, my Lord, should know that all my brothers have left me; and that I and Abdi-Kheba alone are left to fight against the leader of the Habiru. And Zurata, prince of Acco (Jud. 1:31) and Indaruta, prince of Achshaph (Josh. 11:1) were the ones who hastened to my help in return for 50 chariots of which I have now been deprived. But behold, [now] they have been fighting against me and may it please the King, my Lord, to send the Janhamu, so that we can wage a proper war and restore the land of the King, my Lord, to its old frontiers...."

This letter from a prince of Canaan paints a picture which faithfully reflects the times. In these few sentences we can recognise unmistakably the intrigues and endless feuds both among the princes themselves
1 -- Middle Egypt.

p 146 -- and with the warlike nomadic tribes. The most interesting point about the letter, apart from the style and contents, is its author, Prince Suwardata. His name shows clearly that he was of Indo-Aryan descent. Prince Indaruta whom he mentions is also an Indo-Aryan. Though it may sound extraordinary, a third of these princely correspondents from Canaan have Indo-Aryan ancestry. Biryawaza of Damascus, Biridiya of Megiddo, Widia of Askelon, Birashshena of Shechem in Samaria have all Indo-Aryan names. Indaruta, the name of the prince of Achshaph, is in fact identical with names from the Vedas and other early Sanskrit writings. Abdi-Kheba of Jerusalem, who has been mentioned, belongs to the Hurrite people often referred to in the Bible as Horites.

The reliability of this tradition has recently been illuminated by the discovery of Egyptian papyri of the 15th century B.C., in which the land of Canaan is repeatedly called "Khuru" after the Hurrites, the Horites of the Bible. According to this the Hurrites must for a time at least have been widespread throughout the whole country.

And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried: and the people wept that night ... wherefore hath the Lord brought us into this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? - (Num. 14:1-3.

The reports that the spies brought back telling of the strongly fortified cities of Canaan, "great and walled up to heaven" (Deut. 1:28), and of their superbly armed inhabitants, were not exaggerated. Turreted fortresses built of "Cyclops-walls" were to the children of Israel an unaccustomed and menacing sight. In the land of Goshen, which for many generations had been their home, there was only one fortified town, Raamses. In Canaan the fortresses were practically cheek by jowl. The country was plastered with them. Numerous strongpoints stared down from hilltops and mountain peaks, which made them look even more powerful and terrifying. Little wonder that the report of the scouts was shattering in its effect.

Israel was quite unskilled in the use and manufacture of implements of war. They had at their disposal nothing but the most primitive weapons - bows, javelins, swords, knives - to say nothing of horsedrawn chariots which the Canaanites possessed in vast numbers. Israel was still spoilt by the "fleshpots of Egypt", for which especially the older people among them were continually sighing and bemoaning their lot. Despite their new faith and the experiences of the Exodus which they had shared together, they were not yet welded into a community which would be prepared to risk a clash with superior forces.

In view of these facts Moses wisely resolved not to carry out his original intention of marching upon Canaan from the south. Neither

p 147 -- the time nor the people was ripe for the great moment. They must begin their roaming afresh, the time of testing and proving their mettle must be prolonged in order to allow these refugees and land-hungry wanderers to develop into a tough and compact national group schooled to bear any privation. A new generation must first emerge.

We know very little about the obscure period which now follows. Thirty-eight years - almost a generation, and time enough to mould a nation. This was the duration of their sojourn in the "wilderness". Frequently associated with the "miracles"of the quails and the manna, this section of Biblical chronology and topography sounds highly improbable. And with good reason, as would appear from systematic investigations, though on different grounds from those generally supposed. Actually there never was a "sojourn in the wilderness" in the proper sense of the words.

Although the Biblical data for this period are very scanty, we can obtain a sufficiently clear picture from the few places that can be scientifically established. According to this the children of Israel with their flocks spent a long time in the Negev, near the two sources of water at Kadesh. Once they went back again to the Gulf of Aqabah into the area of Midian and the Sinai peninsula. Compared with the deadly stretches of African sand-dunes in the Sahara, this tract of land has never been a proper desert. Examination of the terrain has established the fact that since neither the irrigation nor the rainfall has altered greatly, the "wilderness" must have had at least the character of steppe country with possibilities for grazing and waterholes.

The archaeological activities of Nelson Glueck of the U.S.A. have enhanced our knowledge of the general conditions of that period. According to him these regions were inhabited about the 13th century B.C. by semi-nomadic tribes who had brisk and flourishing trading and commercial relations with both Canaan and Egypt. Among them we should include the Midianites with whom Moses lived during his exile and one of whom, Zipporah, he married (Ex. 2:212).

The latest Bible research proceeds somewhat differently and is not content with the demonstration that places named in the Bible really existed and with showing that certain events related in the Bible such as the way in which Moses smote the rock causing the water to flow (Ex. 17:1-7, Num. 20:2-13; Deut. 32:51) or the episode of the burning bush (Ex. 3:2) might well have had a basis in fact. Such occurrences, however striking they may be, might after all provide nothing but the framework for a story which is mere invention. To give an example from the present day- it would be perfectly conceivable to write a story in which the progress of the intrigue is completely fictional although all the details, beginning with the going off of the alarm clock in the morning and proceeding with the nerve-shattering ringing of the telephone, squealing brakes, noisy tramcars, fast tube trains and so on are correct

p 148 -- in every respect. Whether such details are described correctly or wrongly is not, therefore, fundamentally a safe indication of the truth or falseness of the story itself. And so the account of the migration of the Israelites from Egypt has been subjected to closer examination than ever before without pausing unduly to consider details.

Rather have people asked what really lies behind this story as a whole, the account of a migration through the desert or steppe which lasted for a generation and after which the Israelites reached their goal only by very strange detours. The result of this examination was not a world shaking discovery, nothing sensational for the press. On the contrary, it was the common and for the scientist quite unsensational realisation that things are somewhat more complicated than they appear to be at the outset. We, too, should have become accustomed by now to this fact. Thus, for example, the Bible mentions Succoth and Migdol (Ex. 13:20 and 14:2 ) as places where the Israelites halted on their way out of Egypt. Obviously these places lay on a well-known escape route used by Egyptian slaves, for an Ancient Egyptian reader, which was used for instruction purposes in schools and deals with the pursuit of runaway slaves (Papyrus Anastasi V, XIX 2-XX 6), mentions the same placenames.

Certainly it was not "the whole of Israel" which left Egypt, but only a number of groups of people who - themselves or their descendants - were later absorbed in the greatness that was Israel. The Bible itself lets us glimpse the fact that it was not "the whole of Israel" which was then migrating, for an "Israelite" was plainly not exclusively the person who arrived in the Promised Land at the end of the journey. On the contrary, there were Israelites resident there already when the migrants arrived. Thus it came about that Joshua assembled "the whole of Israel" between the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim near Shechem and quite explicitly we are told "as well the stranger as he that was born among them" (Joshua 8:33). In other words, at the time when the Israelites took possession of the land, there must have been others who had already been living there for some time. We are left to ponder whether these people had arrived with a previous migration, or, if not, what this all indicates....

Perhaps the various incidents of the migration which took place in Egypt, on the Sinai Peninsula and finally in the land on the banks of the Jordan, simply reflect different traditions of these various regions which have merely been brought into harmony with one another in the Bible and linked together to form a continuous narrative thus providing a mixture of traditions. Such a mixture is usually indicated by the repetitions which occur. And such repetitions do indeed occur here. The most obvious example is the repetition of the miracle of the sea (Ex. 14) when the Israelites cross the Jordan (Joshua 3:4-17). For the second time Israel is reported to have passed dry-shod across a body of water

p 149 -- whose waves "failed and were cut off" on the one side whereas they rose up "upon an heap" on the other. In whatever way attempts have been made to render plausible the earlier crossing of the Red Sea or rather the Reed Sea, the repetition with the crossing of the Jordan must leave us sceptical. Is it after all only fiction and not history that the writers of the Bible books are serving up to us when they relate Israel's journeyings from Egypt to the Promised Land?

Surprisingly enough quite recently we have had archaeological confirmation of two occurrences in the Biblical account of the journey through the desert which nobody would have expected in this connection. In spite of all the planning and systematic work, chance nevertheless has its part to play in archaeology and chance does not always pay any attention to what the scholars expect! In this case it enabled the Israeli archaeologist Benno Rothenberg to discover a "serpent of brass" and a tabernacle in the copper mine area of Timna (Wadi Arabah).

The "serpent of brass" is a serpent idol to which magical powers were attributed (Num. 21:9). It is reported that there was a similar idol in the temple at Jerusalem which was not removed until it was broken in pieces by King Hiskia (Hezekiah) of Judah, who reigned around 700 B.C. (2 Kings 18:4). The serpent idol naturally reminds us of the Sumerian serpent staff on a vase dedicated to the god of life Ningizidda. It reminds us, too, of the Aesculapius's staff of a later phase of Classical Antiquity as well as of the numerous serpents of Ancient Egypt. Already at the beginning of this century a German scholar, H. Gressmann, had asserted that the "brazen serpent" in the Bible must have been taken over from the Midianites with whom the Israelites were in contact during the journey through the desert.

According to the Bible, the Midianites were descended from Abraham's wife Keturah (Gen. 25:2-6) and Reuel (or Jethro), a priest of the Midianites, who was the father-in-law, adviser and co-celebrant "before the Lord" (Ex. 2:16; 3:1; 18:l ff) of Moses. The Israelites are supposed to owe the strange cult of the brazen serpent to Reuel. It is not without a touch of dramatic effect that we note that it was at an archaeological site showing signs of Midianite occupation that Benno Rothenberg found an idol in the form of a brazen serpent five inches in length and partly decorated with gold. As though this sensational confirmation of an important part of the Biblical accounts of the journey through the desert, which have been the object of so much
discussion, were not enough, this small bronze serpent was found in the Holy of Holies of a tabernacle! That really was the crowning point of Rothenberg's discoveries, for the unearthing of a tabernacle was something of extraordinary importance, as ever since the nineteenth century
Biblical scholars of the most varied persuasions had expressed doubts concerning the existence of the tabernacle about which the Bible has so

p 150 -- much to say (Ex. 25-31 and 35-39). It is true that some critics had fallen silent when a very small, transportable tabernacle was discovered on a relief on the Bel Temple at Palmyra (Tadmor). At any rate the possibility of the existence of a tabernacle was no longer completely excluded, although the details of the Biblical descriptions of tabernacles were still considered to be a back projection on to the period of the wandering in the desert of conditions in the Temple at Jerusalem. In any case, the nomads' shrine on the relief at Palmyra was extremely small and strictly speaking it is rather a representation of the Ark of the Covenant than of the Tabernacle which contained the Holy Ark.

The Midianite tabernacle unearthed by Rothenberg is quite different. Its measurements bring it much closer to the tabernacle described in the Bible. It was found on the site of an older, Egyptian place of worship dedicated to the goddess Hathor. The Midianites who, following the Egyptians, were mining copper on their own account at Timna, converted this place of worship into a shrine of their own religion and covered it with an awning of which Rothenberg found not only the holes into which the posts had been rammed at an angle but even some remnants of material.

Of course, details of the interior lay-out and arrangement of the Biblical tabernacles still remain to be clarified. Thus, for example, the altar for burnt offerings is supposed to have been equipped with brass fittings and "a grate of network of brass" (Ex. 27:1-8), but at a very much
later date not even King Solomon had at his disposal craftsmen who could carry out such work. He was obliged to request them from King Hiram of Tyre (2 Chron. 2:6 and 12 f ). The horns of this altar in the tabernacle, as they are called (Ex. 27:2; 30:2 f) did not appear, according to the archaeological find in Israel, until the beginning of the time of the kings, that is to say not until the Temple had been built. It is only in connection with the time of the kings (cf. I Kings 1:50 f; Ps. 1:18 [1:17]; Jer. 17:1; Amos 3:14) that the Bible mentions them again. Whatever the truth of the matter, after Rothenberg's discovery, there is now in principle nothing to prevent us from supposing that at quite an early date Israel possessed a tabernacle and that it was more or less like that described in the Bible.

p 151 -- Chapter 14 -- ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE PROMISED LAND -- Rise of a new generation - Change of plan - Transit permit through Edom requested - Pressing on through Transjordan - King Og's "iron bedstead" - Dolmen discovered near Amman - Moab sends its daughters - Baal worship in Canaan - Moses sees the Promised Land - Camping opposite Jericho.

And he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was consumed - Num. 32:13.

Not until the long years of their wanderings are approaching an end does the Bible take up the thread again of the story of the children of Israel. A new generation has sprung up and is ready to cross the threshold of the Promised Land. None of the men who led the Exodus out of Egypt will, according to the Bible, set foot in the land of promise - not even Moses himself.

The new plan of campaign is to conquer Canaan from the east, i.e. the territory east of the Jordan. Nevertheless the road to Upper Transjordan from Kadesh is blocked by five kingdoms, which occupy the broad strip of land between the Jordan valley and the Arabian desert: in the north, beginning at the spurs of Hermon is the kingdom of Bashan, then the Amorite kingdom of Sihon, next, the kingdom of Ammon, then the kingdom of Moab, on the east side of the Dead Sea, and, right in the south, Edom.

Edom is therefore the first kingdom that has to be negotiated on the way to Upper Transjordan. The children of Israel ask permission to pass through:       And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edorn.... Let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country - Num. 20:14,17.

Main roads are the quickest roads to anywhere. In those days what corresponded to our trunk roads and motorways in the 20th century was a road that ran right through the middle of Edom. This was the old "King's Highway" which dated back to Abraham's time. "Let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country", they asked; "We will go by the king's highway" (Num. 20:17).

The settled population of the East always distrusts nomads,

p 152 -- nowadays as much as long ago, even though Israel's emissaries declare expressly: "We will not pass through the fields, or through the vineyards ... we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders.... And if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then I will pay for it" (Num. 20: 17,19).

In the course of an expedition which lasted several years Nelson Glueck confirmed the aptness of the Biblical description of Edom. In the southern part of Transjordan, in the territories that had once belonged to Edom and Moab, he came across numerous traces of a settlement which dated from the beginning of the 13th century. Signs of cultivated ground, which were also discovered, suggested well stocked fields. It is therefore understandable that in spite of all assurances Edom refused the children of Israel permission to use the road and pass through their country.

Their hostility compelled Israel to go a long way round. They trek northwards along the western edge of Edom towards the Dead Sea. Punon, now called Kirbet-Feinan, an old copper-mine, and Oboth, are visited for the sake of their water supplies. Then the Israelites follow the little river Sered, which marks the frontier between Edom and Moab, and reach Transjordan. They make a wide circle round Moab on the south-east side of the Dead Sea. By this time they have reached the river Arnon and the southern frontier of the kingdom of the Amorites (Num. 21:13). Once more the Israelites ask for permission to use the "King's Highway" (Num. 21:22). Once more it is refused, this time by Sihon, king of the Amorites. A battle begins and the process of conquest by force of arms has started.

By defeating the Amorites the Israelites collect their first laurels. Conscious of their strength they push northwards over the river Jabbok and conquer the kingdom of Bashan in addition. Thus by their first determined attack they have become masters of Transjordan from the river Arnon to the banks of the Lake of Galilee.

Into the matter-of-fact description of this military offensive in Transjordan there has crept a reference to the "iron bed" of a giant, king Og of Bashan (Deut. 3:11), which may have puzzled many people. This mysterious and improbable sounding passage in the Bible, has, however, a very natural and at the same time striking explanation. The Bible is preserving here in all faithfulness a memory which takes us back to Canaan's dim and distant past.

When the scholars were searching the Jordan country for evidence which would tie up with Biblical history, they came upon remarkable structures such as archaeologists had already encountered in other countries as well. These consisted of tall stones, built in oval formation and every now and then roofed over with a heavy transverse block - the famous Great Stone Graves. They are also called megalithic graves or dolmens, and were once used for burying the dead. In Europe - they

p 153 -- are found in North Germany, Denmark, England and North-west France - they are called locally "Giants' Beds". Since these massive monuments are also found in India, East Asia and even the South Sea Islands, they are ascribed to a great mass migration in early times.

In 1918 Gustav Dalman, the German scholar, discovered in the neighbourhood of Amman, the modern capital of Jordan, a dolmen which aroused unusual interest because it seemed to shed light on a factual Biblical reference in quite an astonishing way. Amman stands precisely on the old site of Rabbath-Ammon. The Bible says about this giant king Og: "Behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon [Rabbath-Ammon]? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man" (Deut. 311). The size of the dolmen discovered by Dalman corresponded approximately to these measurements. The "bed" consists of basalt, an extremely hard grey-black stone. The appearance of such a burying-place may have given rise to the Biblical description of the "iron bed" of the giant king. Further investigations have proved that dolmens are common in Palestine, principally in Transjordan above the river Jabbok, that is, in present day Ajlun. Well over a thousand of these ancient monuments are to be found among the coarse grass of the highlands. The country above the Jabbok, so the Bible tells us, is the kingdom over which king Og of Bashan is said to have reigned, Og who alone "remained of the remnant of giants" (Deut. 3:11). Bashan, which was conquered by Israel, was also called "the land of giants" (Deut. 3:13).

West of the Jordan the only dolmens to be found are in the neighbourhood of Hebron. The scouts, whom Moses sent out from Kadesh, "ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron ... and there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak" (Num. 13:22, 33) . They must have seen the stone graves which have now been discovered at Hebron in the vicinity of the Valley of Grapes.

Who the "giants" really were is still quite unknown. Possibly they were a people who were much taller than the old established population around the Jordan. Clearly there was some racial memory of a taller type of man, which was enough to make a deep impression, and perhaps this is the reason why it appears in the Bible too.

These huge stone graves and the stories about giants once again bear witness to the colourful and varied history of the Land of Canaan, that narrow strip of land on the Mediterranean coast, into which from earliest times waves of alien peoples surged incessantly and left their mark behind them.

The news that Israel had conquered the whole of Jordan put king Balak of Moab into a panic. He was afraid that his own people too would be no match in physique or military skill for these tough sons of the desert. He convenes "the elders of Midian" and incites them

p 154 -- against the children of Israel (Num. 22:4). They resolve to employ other than military measures. They will attempt to impose a check on Israel by means of magic. Incantations and curses, in the efficacy of which the peoples of the Ancient East firmly believed, will assuredly smash Israel's power. Balaam is summoned in haste from Pethor in Babylonia, where these black arts flourish. But Balaam, the great sorcerer and magician, fails. As soon as Balaam tries to utter a curse, a blessing upon Israel comes out instead (Num. 23). Then the king of Moab throws the most dangerous trump card in existence into the balance, a wicked card that is to have a lasting effect on the lives of the children of Israel.

The Bible passage which contains a description of the abominable stratagem of King Balak is felt by theologians to be embarrassing and therefore they prefer to gloss it over. The real question is, however, why such a scandalous affair appears in the Bible at all. The answer is simple: the event was one which was of the deepest and most fateful significance for the people of Israel. That is the reason why the narrator does not maintain a modest silence but gives a frank and candid account of what actually happened.

It was in the thirties that French archaeologists, working at the Mediterranean port of Ras Shamra - the "White Haven" on the coast of Phoenicia - under the direction of Professor Claude Schaeffer of Strasbourg brought to light some evidence of Canaanite religious practices. Only then was it possible to estimate and understand what is recorded in Num. 25.

And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods - Num. 25:1-2.

It is not the attractions of vice that the children of Israel are faced with. That is something that is and always had been universal. It was not professional prostitutes who led Israel astray. It was the daughters of the Moabites and the Midianites, their own wives and sweethearts. They enticed and seduced the men of Israel to take part in the rites of Baal, the fertility cult of Canaan. What Israel encountered, while still on the other side of Jordan, was the voluptuous worship of the Phoenician gods. The leaders of Israel struck swiftly and struck hard. They did not even spare their own men. Offenders were slaughtered and hanged. Phinehas, grand-nephew of Moses, who saw an Israelite taking a Midianite woman into his tent, took a javelin "and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly" (Num. 25:8). The people of Moab were spared since they were related to Israel-Lot, Abraham's nephew, was regarded as their ancestor (Gen. 19:37). But against the Midianites a war of extermination was let loose, the classical "herem" or ban, as it is laid down in the Law (Deut. 7:2 ff;

p 155 -- 20 13ff ). "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him," ordered Moses. Only the young girls were spared, everyone else was killed (Num. 31:7, 17, 18).

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land - Deut. 34:1.

Moses had now fulfilled his heavy task. From the bond-cities of Egypt, through the years of hardship and privation in the steppes right up to that moment he had had to travel a long and bitterly hard road. He had nominated as his successor Joshua, a tried and trusted man and an unusually gifted strategist, which was what Israel was most in need of. Moses had finished the course and could take his leave of the world. He was not allowed to set foot himself on the soil of the Promised Land. But he was allowed to glimpse it from afar, from Mt. Nebo.

To visit this Biblical mountain means a journey of about 18 miles from Amman, centre and seat of government of the present kingdom of Jordan. The trip takes rather more than half an hour in a Land-Rover, crossing the hill-country on the edge of the Arabian desert, through wadis and sometimes past ploughed fields, heading straight for the south-east in the direction of the Dead Sea.

After a short climb over bare rocks we reach a broad barren plateau, 2,500 feet above sea level. On the western edge the cliffs drop sharply down to the Jordan basin. A fresh breeze blows on the summit. Under the clear blue skies there stretches into the distance in front of the enchanted visitor a unique panorama.

To the south lie the broad waters of the Salt Sea with their silvery sheen. On the far bank rises a dreary desolate scene of stone humps and hillocks. Behind it towers the long chain of brownish white limestone mountains of the Land of Judah Just where it begins, rising sharply out of the Negev, lies Hebron. In the west, towards the Mediterranean, two tiny dots can be distinguished with the naked eye from the mountain range that stands out against the horizon - the towers of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The eye wanders northward over the highlands of Samaria, past Galilee to the snow capped peaks of Hermon in the shimmering distance.

At the foot of Nebo narrow gorges slope downwards, brilliant with the green of their pomegranate trees and their orange coloured fruit. Then the ground sinks abruptly into the desolate steppe of the Jordan basin. A landscape of dazzling white chalk hills, almost as ghostly as the mountains of the moon and without a single blade of grass, flanks the mere 30 foot width of the river Jordan. The only comfort to the eye is a small green patch in front of the mountains that rise steeply on the west side of the Jordan - the oasis of Jericho.

p 156 -- This view from Nebo into Palestine was the last thing that Moses saw.

But beneath him on the broad steppe of Moab thin columns of smoke are rising heavenwards. Day and night campfires are burning among the mass of black goatshair tents. Joined to the hum of voices of all these men, women and children, the wind also carries over to the Jordan valley the bleating of grazing flocks. It is a peaceful scene. But it is only a moment of respite before the long yearned for day, the great calm before the storm which is decisively to affect the destiny of Israel and that of the land of Canaan.

p 157 -- SECTION IV -- The Battle for the Promised Land From Joshua to Saul --

Chapter 15 -- ISRAEL INVADES -- The world about 1200 B.C. - The weakness of Canaan - The first iron merchants - The ford across the Jordan - The stronghold of Jericho, the oldest city in the world - Scholars quarrel over broken walls - A trail of fire - Pharaoh mentions "Israel" by name for the first time - Excavations at Hazor - Graves at the Village of Joshua.

Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying: Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel - Josh. 1:1-2.

About the same time as Israel was standing by the Jordan ready to march into the Promised Land, fate was advancing upon Mediterranean Troy and the days of the proud stronghold of King Priam were numbered. Soon the Homeric heroes of Greece, Achilles, Agamemnon and Odysseus would be arming for the fray - the hands of the timepiece of history were moving towards 1200 B.C. Israel could have chosen no better time for invasion. No danger threatened them from Egypt. Under Ramesses II Egypt had indeed known a last period of glory during which it had consolidated its power in Palestine, but even the might of Egypt crumbled in the political upheavals which marked the transition between the Bronze and the Iron Ages. Its influence in Canaan declined rapidly.

Torn by internal feuds between the innumerable petty kingdoms and principalities of its city-states, and sucked dry by the corrupt politics of Egyptian occupation, Canaan itself had shot its bolt.

Ever since the expulsion of the Hyksos about 1550 B C. Palestine had been an Egyptian province. Under the Hyksos a feudal system had broken up the old patriarchal social structure as it had existed in the towns of Abraham's day. Under an aristocratic ruling class, which was self-centred and despotic, the people were reduced to the level of subjects without rights, and became mere plebeians. Egypt left this feudal system in Palestine unaltered. Native princes could do as they pleased: they had their own armies, which consisted of patrician charioteers and plebeian infantry. Bloody warfare between the city-states did not worry the

p 158 -- Egyptians. All they were interested in was the payment of tribute, which was supervised by strict and inflexible Egyptian inspectors. Garrisons and defence posts tacitly lent their activities the necessary weight. Gaza and Joppa housed the most important Egyptian administrative centres. By means of labour levies - supplied by the feudal lords - roads were built and maintained, the royal estates on the fertile plain of Jezreel south of Nazareth were managed and the glorious cedar forests of Lebanon were felled to the ground. The commissioners of the Pharaohs were corrupt. Often the troops' pay and rations were misappropriated. Whereupon they took the law into their own hands, and mercenaries from Egypt and Crete, Bedouins and Nubians plundered defenceless villages.

Under Egyptian rule the land of Canaan bled to death. The population shrank. Patrician houses of the 13th century B.C. are more primitive than they had been in earlier times, as is shown by excavations. Objets d'art and jewellery of any value are rarer, and gifts deposited with the dead in their tombs are of poorer quality. Fortress walls have lost their old solidity.

Only on the coast of Syria, protected on the landward side by the mountain ridges of the Lebanon and less affected by the quarrels of the princes, life in the maritime republics pursued its untroubled way. Whatever else happens seaports are always places where men can exchange what they have for what they want. About 1200 B.C. an entirely new metal - as valuable to begin with as gold or silver - appeared on the price lists: iron. Since it came from the Hittite country, the Phoenicians were the first to deal in this metal, which was to give its name to one of the ages of man's history. The Egyptians had known about iron for nearly 2,000 years and valued it as an extremely unusual and rare commodity. The iron they knew however did not come from our planet at all but from meteors. And the few expensive weapons that they managed to produce in this way were very properly called "Daggers from Heaven".

With the appearance of this new metal a new epoch, the Iron Age, was announced. The Bronze Age with its unique civilising achievements died away and a great epoch of the ancient world came to an end.

At the end of the 13th century B.C. a great new wave of foreign peoples surged down from the northern Aegean. By land and water these "Sea Peoples" flowed over Asia Minor. They were the fringes of a great movement of population to which the Dorian migration to Greece also belonged. The impetus of these foreigners - they were Indo-Germanic - was directed to Canaan and Egypt. For the time being Israel, waiting poised by the Jordan, had nothing to fear from them. And the Canaanites were divided and weak. Israel's hour had come. The Biblical trumpets of Jericho gave the signal.

p 159 -- ... and they removed from Shittim and came to Jordan ... and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clear over Jordan ... and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho - Josh. 3:1,17; 4:19.

Today there is a bridge over the river at this point: the Jordan is very narrow and has always been fordable in many places. The natives know exactly where these fords are. In the dry season the dirty yellow water at Jericho is only about 30 feet wide.

When Israel reached the Jordan they found it in full spate, "for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest" (Josh. 3:15). As happened every year, the snow on Hermon had begun to melt. "... the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap" (i.e. were dammed) "very far from the city Adam ... and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clear over Jordan" (Josh. 3:16, 17). A much frequented ford on the middle reaches of the Jordan, el-Damiyah, recalls the "city Adam". Should there be a sudden spate it can quite easily be dammed at such a place for a short time, and while it is blocked the lower part of the river is almost dried up. (An alternative explanation is offered on pp. 148-9.)

Considerable damming of the Jordan has however often been attested as a result of earthquake. The last thing of this kind happened in 1927. As a result of a severe quake the river banks caved in, tons of soil crashed down into the river bed from the low hills that follow the Jordan's winding course. The flow of water was completely stopped for twenty-one hours. In 1924 the same thing happened. In 1906 the Jordan became so choked up with debris as the result of an earthquake that the river bed on the lower reaches near Jericho was completely dry for twenty-four hours. Arab records mention a similar occurrence in A.D. 1267.

It is easy to see from the air why this part of the Jordan valley was so important thousands of years ago. To the east, between the river and the Arabian desert, stretches the hilly plateau of Jordan, which has always been the home of countless tribes of nomads and from which they have always been able to look across to the fertile pastures and ploughed fields of Canaan. It is a natural line of attack - the principal ford across the Jordan, easily negotiated by man and beast. But anyone trying to force his way in from the east had to face the first serious obstacle soon after crossing the river - Jericho, the strategic key to the conquest of Canaan.

And it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.... And they burnt the city with fire and all that was therein - Josh. 6:20, 24.

p 160 -- ~ Joshua's battle for this city has made it famous. Today a battle rages round it, but it is between experts armed with spades, picks and chronological tables. According to the Bible it took Joshua seven days to subdue Jericho. The battle of the archaeologists over what is left of it has lasted - with intervals - for more than seventy years now and is by no means settled.

The exciting and dramatic excavations at Jericho are rife with remarkable finds and unexpected discoveries, with surprises and disappointments, with assertions and counter-assertions, with disputes over interpretation and chronology.

The Jordan basin has a tropical climate. The village of Eriha, the modern successor of Jericho, gives the impression of being an oasis on the edge of a barren waste of chalk. Even palm-trees grow here although they are seldom found anywhere else in Palestine, except to the south of Gaza. The Bible too calls Jericho "the city of palm trees" (Jud. 3:13).

Golden red clusters of dates shimmer among the green foliage. From ancient times the spring called "Ain es-Sultan" has produced as if by magic this lush patch of vegetation. North of present day Jericho a mound of ruins is named after it, Tell es-Sultan. This is the battle ground of the archaeologists. Anyone wanting to examine it must buy a ticket. The site of the excavations lies behind a barbed wire fence.

The remains of Jericho have made Tell es-Sultan one of the most extraordinary scenes of discovery in the world, for it has long since been not merely a matter of investigating the fortress of Biblical times. In this mound, under the strata of the Bronze Age, lie traces of the Stone Age, which take us back to the earliest times of all, to the days when man first built himself settled habitations. The oldest of Jericho's houses are 7,000 years old and, with their round walls, resemble Bedouins' tents. But the art of pottery was as yet unknown among their inhabitants. In 1953 a British expedition conducted excavations here, and the director of the enterprise, Dr. Kathleen M. Kenyon declared: "Jericho can lay claim to being by far the oldest city in the world."

Shortly after the turn of the century archaeologists directed their attention to this lonely mound of Tell es-Sultan. From 1907 to 1909 picks and spades carefully felt their way through layer after layer of this massive mound of ruins. When the two leaders of the German-Austrian expedition, Professor Ernst Sellin and Professor Karl Watzinger, made known what they had discovered, they caused genuine amazement. Two concentric rings of fortification were exposed, the inner ring surrounding the ridge of the hill. It is a masterpiece of military defence made of sun-dried bricks in the form of two parallel walls about 10 or 12 feet apart. The inner wall, which is particularly massive, is about 12 feet thick throughout. The outer ring of fortification runs along the foot of the hill and consists of a 6 foot thick wall, about' 25-30 feet high, with

p 161 -- strong foundations. These are the famous walls of Jericho. The two lines.of fortificadon, their exact historical placing, the dates of their erection and destruction have given rise to a vehement dispute among the experts who advance the pros and cons in a welter of opinions, hypotheses and arguments. It began with the first announcement by Sellin and Watzinger and has continued ever since.

Both discoverers arrived themselves at what they called a "considerable modification" of their first conclusion. They issued a joint statement in which they maintained that the outer wall "fell about 1200 B.C., and therefore must be the city wall which Joshua destroyed". To shed new light on the whole business a British expedition set out for Tell es-Sultan in 1930. After six years' digging further portions of the fortifications were exposed. Professor John Garstang as leader of the expedition noted every detail with the utmost precision. He described graphically the violence with which the inner circle of parallel fortifications had been destroyed: "The space between the two walls is filled with fragments and rubble. There are clear traces of a tremendous fire, compact masses of blackened bricks, cracked stones, charred wood and ashes. Along the walls the houses have been burned to the ground and their roofs have crashed on top of them."

FIG. 23-The walls of the old Canaanite fortress of Jericho. (Reconstructed.)

After Garstang had consulted the most knowledgeable experts, the outcome of the second archaeological battle was that the inner ring was the more recent, therefore the one which must have been destroyed by the Israelites. But that did not settle the matter. The wrangle about the Walls of Jericho continues. Garstang dates the destruction of the inner ring about 1400 B.C. Father Hugues Vincent, a leading archaeologist and one of the most successful investigators into Jerusalem's ancient

p 162 -- past, also studied the evidence and dated the destruction of the walls between 1250 and 1200 B.C.

Today we know that both experts were mistaken. Since their day, archaeologists have developed methods which allow us to understand excavation sites much better than was the case a few decades ago. Professor Garstang and Father Hugues Vincent both thought that walls from the early Bronze Age belonged to the late Bronze Age. Today we know that this is not so. The mistake occurred because wind and weather had largely carried away the more recent layers which covered the earliest remains. It is in one area only, at the highest place on Tell es-Sultan, on the northwest of the heap of ruins, that the remains of middle Bronze Age defence works, built on top of what is left of early Bronze Age walls, have been preserved at their full height. Scanty vestiges of late Bronze Age dwellings have been found only on the lower eastern slopes of the hill. We owe all this information to the great British archaeologist Kathleen M. Kenyon who by her extensive and successful excavations in Jericho during the fifties of the present century laid the foundations of our present-day knowledge. It was Kathleen M. Kenyon, too, who convincingly interpreted the very small amount of pottery found at Jericho. She was also able to interpret the information provided by the graves which constitute the only evidence concerning the late period of ancient Jericho.

According to her findings the walls of Jericho had to be rebuilt during the Bronze Age no less than seventeen times. The walls were repeatedly destroyed either by earthquakes or by erosion. Perhaps this weakness of the walls of Jericho found expression in the Bible account of how the children of Israel, in order to conquer Jericho, merely had to shout their war cry when the priests blew the trumpets. The middle Bronze Age city dated from the time of the Hyksos and came to an end at the same time as they, around 1550 B.C. Thereafter Jericho remained uninhabited for about a century and a half. It is only about the year 1400 B.C., as is shown by pottery, objects found in graves and the few late Bronze Age remains of dwellings on the eastern slope of the hill, that people began to settle there once more. This late Bronze Age town, of whose existence we have only such sparse evidence, was again deserted by its inhabitants, however, around 1325 B. C. Did they become the victims of conquerors of some kind who were subsequently absorbed in the melting-pot of "Israel" and whose conquests were ultimately incorporated in the Biblical account of the settlement of the land? For if it is the case that Israelites did not come to Jericho until the time of the occupation, i.e. about the middle or towards the end of the 13th century B.C., they did not need to conquer the city for they found it uninhabited! Jericho was not rebuilt until the 9th century before Christ, in the days of King Ahab (I Kings 16:34). As the Bible. tells us (Joshua 6:26), it was as though a curse had lain on the place for centuries.

p 163 -- Jericho was the first strong point to be overcome on the way to the Promised Land. Archaeologists have been able on other sites to follow the further progress of the children of Israel towards their conquest of Canaan.

About 12 miles southwest of Hebron lay the Debir of the Bible. Defended by a strong enclosing wall it dominated the Negev. Excavations by W. F. Albright and M. G. Kyle of the U.S.A. in Tell Beit Mirsim since 1926 disclosed a layer of ashes and considerable destruction. The stratum of ashes contained sherds which undoubtedly date from the end of the 13th century B.C. Immediately above the burnt layer are traces of a new settlement by Israel. "And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to Debir, and fought against it" (Josh. 10:38).

FIG 24 - Map of area around Jericho

Thirty miles south-west of Jerusalem the Lachish of the Bible can be identified. It must have been an extraordinarily strong fortress for Canaan. In the thirties at Tell ed-Duweir a British expedition under James Lesley Starkey measured out an area of twenty-four acres which had at one time been built up and surrounded by a strong wall. This city also fell a victim to a conflagration which destroyed everything. A bowl which was salvaged from the ruins bears an inscription giving its date as the fourth year of Pharaoh Merenptah. That corresponds to the year 1230 B.C. "And the Lord delivered Lachish into the hand of Israel" (Josh. 10:32).

In the Cairo Museum there is a monument from a mortuary temple near Thebes, on which the victory of Pharaoh Merenptah  over the
-- Acceded to the throne in 1234 B.C.

p 164 -- Libyans is commemorated and celebrated. In order to augment his triumph, other notable victories which this ruler is said to have achieved are also mentioned. The end of the hymn of praise runs as follows: "Canaan is despoiled and all its evil with it. Askelon is taken
captive, Gezer is conquered, Yanoam is blotted out. The people of Israel is desolate, it has no offspring: Palestine has become a widow for Egypt."

This triumphal hymn, written in 1229 B.C., is in more than one respect valuable and illuminating. Here for the first time in human history the name "Israel" is immortalised, and that by a foreigner and a contemporary. Israel is expressly described as a "people" and moreover in connection with Palestinian placenames - surely a proof for the most hardened sceptic that Israel was already properly settled in Canaan in 1229 B.C. and no longer completely unknown.
Shortly before 1200 B.C., Israel had reached the goal which had for so long been the object of its aspirations. It is now in Canaan, but it is not yet in full control of the country. A trail of burnt out cities marks its path and indicates an extremely shrewd strategic plan. Joshua avoided the
strongest fortresses like Gezer and Jerusalem. Obviously he followed the line of least resistance. The fertile plains and river valleys are likewise still in the hands of the Canaanites and will remain so for many generations to come. Israel has neither the armour to resist the dreaded chariots, nor the technique and experience required to war against strongly fortified cities. But it has secured a foothold in the more sparsely populated areas, the hill country on both sides of the Jordan is in its hands.

About ten miles north of the Lake of Galilee lay the mighty stronghold of Hazor, which was still quite powerful, although it had had to suffer, about 1300 B.C., at the hands of conquerors, probably the Egyptians under the Pharaoh Sethos I; Joshua "took Hazor, and smote the king thereof with the sword: for Hazor beforetime was the head of all those kingdoms" (Joshua 11:10). The word "beforetime" provides us with cause for reflection. The town, devastated probably by Sethos 1, before its destruction by the Israelites, had indeed been richer and more flourishing than the Hazor they found. The more crucial event and the one which had the gravest consequences in the town's history was undoubtedly this destruction by Israel towards the end of the 13th century B.C.

The rediscovery of this royal city can be counted as one of the most surprising pieces of good fortune in recent Biblical archaeology. John Garstang, the English archaeologist, had already identified as the site of old Hazor the extensive mound of rubble Tell el-Qedah, which stands out prominently to the west of the Jordan between Lake Huleh and the Lake of Galilee. But it was not until excavations, begun in 1953 under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and directed

p 165 -- by Yigael Yadin of the James A. de Rothschild expedition, had continued over several seasons that the hitherto undisturbed Tell could be awakened from its dreams and induced to part with its closely guarded secrets. Bit by bit its layers began to tell the experts the long and exciting story of the chequered fortunes of Hazor.

No fewer than twenty-one stages of development can be distinguished: twenty-one cities growing up on top of one another, each built on the rubble of past generations and each in its turn levelled to the ground, destroyed by war or fire or the force of nature. Surmounted by its citadel and fortified area the city spread its lower reaches far out into the plain. An ingenious drainage system consisting of clay pipes looked after public sanitation.

What has been discovered confirms in a striking way what the Bible has to say about the powerful role that Hazor played in Canaan at the time of the Israelite conquest. Hazor was in fact not only one of the largest settlements of the country but also one of the strongest fortresses. In the 13th century B.C. it was destroyed, as the Book of Joshua records. A layer of burnt rubble indicates a great conflagration about that time. Many scholars do not hesitate to attribute this burnt rubble to Joshua and his hosts.

With these victories and the promised occupation of' Canaan, Joshua's great assignment has been fulfilled. At a ripe old age he dies and is buried, "in Timnath-Serah which is in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash" (Jjosh. 24:30). The Greek text (LXX 24:30 b) adds a very significant remark: "There they put with him into the tomb in which they buried him, the knives of stone with which he circumcised the children of Israel in Gilgal." In Gilgal, on the way from the Jordan to Jericho, the rite of circumcision was carried out on the men of Israel according to tradition "with stone knives". "Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised" (Jjosh. 5:5). Ten miles north-west of Bethel lies Kefr Ishu'a, the "Village of Joshua". In the neighbouring hillside are some rock tombs. In 1870 in one of these sepulchres a number of stone knives was found....

The Biblical account of what appears in the history books as Israel's occupation of the land and the confirmation by archaeological finds of what the Bible says once again provide excellent examples of the fact that new knowledge gives rise to new problems. Hazor is a prime example. With its burnt rubble, its layer of ashes and its broken idols, it seems to support the following passage: "But the Lord thy God shall deliver them (the Canaanites) unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed. And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have

p 166 -- destroyed them. The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire..." (Deuteronomy 7:23-25). Hazor's late Bronze Age layer of rubble does indeed fit in chronologically very well with the beginning of Joshua's conquest towards the end of the 13th century B.C. Hazor nevertheless presents us with a problem for the king of Hazor was Jabin whom Joshua defeated "by the waters of Merom" (Joshua 11:5ff). According to the Book of Judges (Judges 4:2) which deals with a later phase of Israel's history, Jabin was still ruler over the same town and Israel had been "sold into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor" (Judges 4:2). It was only subsequently that Jabin was "subdued" (judges 4:23) by Barak, the commander of the Israelites, although it is not clear whether the decisive battle took place on the banks of the River Kishon (Judges 5:21) or on Mount Tabor. What are we to think of this duplication? Archaeology here comes to our aid for after the catastrophe towards the end of the 13th century Hazor was by no means such an important town that it could have been considered as the residence of a "king of Canaan" into whose hands Israel was "sold". After an interlude of occupation by semi-nomads and sparse early Israelite settlement (12th-11th century B.C.), it was not until the days of King Solomon (10th century B.C.) that Hazor again became a fortified place. It seems, in consequence, that King Jabin from the period of the judges probably never existed. He is presumably merely a literary reflection of that earlier king of Hazor of the same name during the period of the occupation of the country, that is to say, of the late Bronze Age, except that in the traditions which attached themselves to his person, late Bronze and early Iron Age elements became mingled.

Hazor is situated fairly far to the north, quite a distance north of the Lake of Galilee. Yet the Biblical accounts of a number of other sites which have been excavated in the south of the Promised Land reveal a similar mingling of Iron Age and Bronze Age traditions. Thus the town of Ai is of considerable importance among the Canaanite towns conquered by Joshua (Joshua 7:2ff as well as 8:1-24). According to the Bible (Joshua 12:16) the neighbouring Beth-el is of subsidiary importance. In point of fact, a thick layer of ash and soot-covered brick rubble which covered the late Bronze Age stratum has been found in Beth-el, just as was to be expected. But what happened at Ai?Judith Marquet-Krause, who excavated there, was unable to find any stratum providing evidence of destruction in Joshua's time, the late Bronze Age. In his day Ai had long since lain in ruins and had been deserted ever since the early Bronze Age - thus justifying its name, which in Hebrew merely means "ruin", but not the detailed description of its conquest in the eighteenth chapter of the Book of Joshua! It was not until the beginning of the Iron Age that new settlers arrived, but their village was also destroyed in the end. Had Judith Marquet-Krause been mistaken? Fresh excavations directed by J. A. Callaway were intended to investigate the question.

p 167 -- Callaway could do no more, however, than confirm that there had not been any settlement in Ai during the late Bronze Age. The Israelites, therefore, had never been able to conquer the town.

The experts racked their brains. Could the Bible have been in error to this extent? Or had the writers of the Bible confused something? Did the Biblical account of the capture of Ai really refer to the neighbouring place Beth-el which had indeed fallen into ruins at the end of the Bronze Age? Finally the idea occurred to them that all that was needed was not to cling slavishly to the hypothesis that all the events related in the Bible in connection with the occupation of the country really took place towards the end of the Bronze Age. Could the Bible perhaps be referring to the Ai of the early Iron Age? In that case, it was not only the results of excavations at Ai and the Biblical account which would correspond with one another, but a number of other sites as well such as Arad, Dibon and Gibeon which also had not yielded any traces of occupation during the late Bronze Age except for one grave in Gibeon. Even the statement that Gibeon was greater than Ai (Joshua 10:2') is correct in regard to the Iron Age settlements. Once more the Bible is right if we accept that the traditions concerning the occupation of the country mingle facts from the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.

It was in consequence of these and similar inaccuracies, however, that the specialists found themselves able to look upon the Biblical account of the occupation of the country as the condensed description of an extremely complicated and lengthy process which lasted for several centuries, but which the Bible presents to us in compressed form concentrating it all on the person of Joshua. In doing so, the Bible selects specific events and combines them to form a story in which the episodes do not always agree. Some specialists even claim that an occupation, such as is described in the Bible, never occurred and surprisingly this can be substantiated in the Bible. After his first victories in the land of the Canaanites, Joshua assembled "all Israel" by Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal which rise above the old town of Shechem now known as Nablus. In connection with this event, the Bible expressly uses the words "all Israel ... as well the stranger, as he that was born among them" (Joshua, 8:33). How could that be the case? Had not "all Israel" only just arrived in the Promised Land? What did this mention of those "born among them" signify? Many scholars are of the opinion that the subsequent influx of Israelites occurred in several waves. That might be the explanation - when the newcomers arrived, the others were already there. They were already residents.

There are other theories finding support in the scholarly discussions on the settlement of the land. One of them claims that what the Bible describes as an occupation was really a series of clashes between residents of the towns and the nomads or semi-nomadic

p 168 -- inhabitants of the steppes which were brought about by social and religious motives.

Still another theory advances the idea that the occupation was really a mostly peaceful infiltration of foreign immigrants only now and then leading to tensions which worked themselves out in warlike conflicts.

p 169 -- Chapter 16 -- UNDER DEBORAH AND GIDEON -- Israel settles down - Pioneering in the mountains - Peasants' huts instead of palaces - Deborah incites to revolt - Clash in the plain of Jezreel - Victory over the "chariots of iron" - Israelite crockery at Megiddo - Marauders from the desert - Traces of Abimelech's destruction of Shechem - Gideon's successful tactics - First battle in history against a camel-corps - A new breed of long-distance carriers.

And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers: and they possessed it and dwelt therein - Josh. 21:43.

Immediately after the conquest an astonishing thing happened: the tribes of Israel dug their toes into the ground they had won. They can therefore no longer have been a typical nomadic people. Canaan had experienced invasions of nomads from time immemorial but they had always been merely episodes. The tribes would graze their flocks and then one day they would disappear as suddenly as they had come. Israel on the other hand became static, cultivating fields and clearing forests ... "if thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country and cut down for thyself there" (Josh. 17:15). They gave up their tents and built themselves huts: they settled down among the ruins of the houses in the towns they had conquered. In Debir, Bethshemesh and Bethel remains of their primitive and poverty-stricken furnishings were found on top of the strata which were deposited when the towns were burned down.

FIG 25 -- Israelite storing-jar

This break with the past is clearly recognisable from the excavations. Where previously patrician houses and palaces of the long established feudal barons had been standing, there now arose peasants' huts and fences. The massive defence walls show signs of having had necessary repairs done to them. But what the men of Israel replaced was of the thinnest masonry. The construction of a new system of strong defensive walls would have entailed forced labour and there was nothing the Israelites hated more. They regarded themselves as
freemen, as independent farmers. "But every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Jud. 17:6). Even the word generally used in

p 170 -- Canaan meaning a bondsman, was used by the Israelites in exactly the opposite sense to mean a freeman. In the feudal system under the princes of the city-states all the drudgery was done by slaves. In the case of Israel the work of the farm was done by the freeborn sons of the family. At their head stood the father, the patriarch. Countless new settlements sprang into being. Archaeologists have found traces of them throughout the highlands. But there is very little of them left. For the first building material they used was sun-dried mud bricks, and the buildings they put up in this way did not last.

Real pioneer work was done by the Israelites in the mountains. Uninhabitable areas, districts without springs or streams were opened up. Although it sounds unbelievable, what remains of a new technique used by their ancestors has been partly taken over and put into commission again by the state of Israel today. They dug cisterns in the ground to collect the rainfall, and lined the insides with a type of limestone plaster which was hitherto unknown. These fixtures were so solidly built that they have been able to withstand the ravages of time for thousands of years.

As the Book of judges tells us, and investigation confirms, the Israelites struck roots in their new home as settlers and farmers. In continuous fighting with their neighbours and feuds among themselves they gradually gained in military power and experience. The Bible mentions disputes with Moabites, Ammonites and Aramaean tribes from the Syrian desert. It speaks of bloody civil war, when the tribes fought against Benjamin (Jud. 20). Bethel lay in the territory of Benjamin, and Albright, digging there, found strata which showed that the place had been destroyed four times between 1200 and 1000 B.C.

It was around this time too that "Abimelech fought against the city all that day: and he took the city and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city, and sowed it with salt" (Jud. 9:45) So runs the description in the Book of Judges of the conquest of Shechem by Abimelech, the ambitious and vindictive son of Gideon who murdered all his brothers.

In 1959 at Tell el Balata, on the site of this Biblical city which had been the first place Abraham encountered on his arrival in Canaan, excavations by American archaeologists from Drew University and McCormick Theological Seminary led by Professor G. Ernest Wright, who was following the earlier investigations of Professor Ernst Sellin of Germany, were able to confirm what the Bible has to say about the fate of Shechem. Fragments of clay jars which were scattered about among the ruins and could be identified as typical Israelite pottery put the date of the destruction of Shechem towards the end of the 12th century B.C., that is, about the period of Abimelech. At the same time the remains of the "tower of Shechem" were identified, as well as the "hold of the

p 171 -- house of the god Berith" and the "house of Millo" which are mentioned in Jud. 9:20, 46. It does seem however that all of these were part of a single building which towered above the city wall and which had been built upon the ruins of an earlier Hyksos temple.

FIG. 26. - Canaanite Prince from Megiddo seen on his throne, with harpist and war-chariot (1200 B.C.).

These troubled years of the first colonists have found an imperishable memorial in three narratives of the Book of Judges: in the Song of Deborah, in the story of Gideon and in the doughty deeds of Samson.

The background of these "pious tales" is made up of facts, contemporary events which as a result of recent research can be dated with considerable accuracy. When Israel entered Canaan about 1230 B.C. it had to be content with the mountains... for it "could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron" (Jud. 1:19). It was not until a century later that the tide turned. It would seem that among the mountains of Galilee tribes which had settled there had to render bond-service to the Canaanites. Among them was the tribe of Issachar which is ridiculed in the Bible as "a strong ass". It is accused of "couching down between two burdens" and of becoming a "servant unto tribute" (Gen. 49:14, 15).

Revolt broke out in Galilee in protest against this oppression. The impetus was supplied by a woman, Deborah. She summoned the tribes of Israel to fight for their freedom. It is from her that that wonderful song, which she sang to the assembled throng, has come down to us.

Barak, one of the tribe of Issachar, became the leader. Other tribes joined in and a great army was formed. Then Barak took a decisive step. He dared to do what Israel had never previously risked, he came to grips with the dreaded enemy on the plain: "So Barak went down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him" (Jud. 4:14) . The scene of the encounter was the broad and fertile plain of Jezreel between the mountains of Galilee in the north and Samaria in the south - absolute and sovereign domain of the Canaanite city princes and feudal barons. Here they awaited the dangerous fighting forces of the Canaanites.... "then fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo" (Jud. 5:19). The incredible happened - Israel won. For the first time they had succeeded in smashing and routing a force of chariots in open battle. The spell was broken: Israel had shown that it

p 172 -- had the measure of the military technique of the Canaanites and could beat them at their own game.

Two mounds of rubble in the plain of Jezreel preserve all that is left of Taanach and Megiddo, lying about 5 miles apart. Both cities changed places several times in order of importance. About 1450 B.C. Taanach was a large city-state while Megiddo was only a small Egyptian garrison. About 1150 B.C. Megiddo was destroyed and deserted by its inhabitants. For a long time it lay in ruins, and was not rebuilt and inhabited until 1100 B.C. The pottery of the new settlers there is striking. It consists of large clay preserving jars of exactly the same type as were used at this time by the Israelites. Archaeologists found them in all the other settlements in the mountains of Samaria and Judaea. Taanach is specifically mentioned in the Song of Deborah as the site of the battle. The reference to its being "by the waters of Megiddo" is presumably a more precise description of its situation. Megiddo itself, whose "water" is the river Kishon, cannot at that time have been in existence.

Archaeological discoveries and Biblical references make it possible to date the first battle against the Canaanite chariots in the period between the destruction and rebuilding of Megiddo, about 1125 B.C.

The Gideon story tells of the second triumph of Israel. Suddenly out of the East came a new, unfamiliar and sinister threat to Israel's safety. Hordes of Midianite nomads, mounted on camels, attacked the country, plundering, burning and massacring ... "for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it" (Jud. 6:5). For years Israel was at the mercy of these Midianite attacks. Then Gideon appeared as their deliverer. He adopted successfully, as the Bible describes in detail (Jud. 7:20ff), a new kind of surprise tactics which routed the Midianites and apparently persuaded them to leave the Israelites in peace from then on.

It is often the lot of peaceful inventions to be used first of all in time of war. The new "invention" which made it possible for the Midianites to terrorise Israel was the taming of the camel!

Tame camels are likely to have been something quite new in the ancient world. The people of the Bronze Age probably knew nothing of them. Egyptian texts never mention them. Even in Mari, next door to the great Arabian desert, there is no single reference to them in any of that vast collection of documents. We must eliminate the camel from our conception of life in the ancient world of the orient. References to them in the book of Genesis must have crept in at a later date. The attractive scene, for example, where we meet Rebecca for the first time in her native city of Nahor, must make do with a change of stage props. The "camels" belonging to her future father-in-law Abraham which she watered at the well were donkeys (Gen. 24:10ff). Similarly it was donkeys that for thousands of years carried on their backs all kinds of

p 173 --burdens and costly merchandise along the great trade routes of the ancient world until the tame camel saved them.

It is not quite certain when exactly the taming of the camel took place but there are some facts which point to a general conclusion. In the 11th century B.C. the camel appears in cuneiform texts and reliefs and from then on is more and more frequently mentioned. This must be about the time of the Gideon story. Doubtless such marauding attacks with animals that had until then been regarded as wild must have come as a frightful shock.

The third challenge held the greatest and deadliest danger for Israel and threatened its very existence: the clash with the Philistines.

p 174 -- Chapter 17 -- THE WARRIORS FROM CAPHTOR -- Krethi and Plethi - Invasion by the "Sea Peoples" - The great trek from the Aegean - Triumphal progress with ox-waggons and ships - The Hittite empire disappears - Seaports in flames on the coast of Canaan - General mobilisation on the Nile - Pharaoh Ramesses III saves Egypt - The great land and sea engagement - Interrogation in P.O.W. camps - Life size portraits of the Philistines.

Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor ...? - Amos 9:7.

The fabulous tales of the redoubtable Samson, that great bear of a man full of pranks and derring-do, herald the beginning of the great tussle.

Philistines! -This name has become common currency in so many ways. We talk of someone being "a proper Philistine", or of someone else as a veritable "Goliath". He also was one of them. We speak disparagingly of the "Cherithites and Pelethites" without realising that these terms designate "Cretans and Philistines". Who does not know the tragic love story of Samson and Delilah, the woman who betrayed him to the Philistines? Who does not remember the superhuman strength of Samson, who could strangle lions with his bare hands,who slew 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, and in the end, blind and deserted by the woman he loved, brought a Philistine temple crashing down about his head in the fury of his anger? Yet very few of us ever really think how little we know of these Philistines whom we talk so much about.

Figure 27 - Examination of Philistine prisoners by Egyptian officers.

The Philistine people, who played a decisive role in the life of Israel, were for a long time wrapped in mystery. It is only quite recently that it

p 175 -- has been possible to find out something about them. Bit by bit, as a result of careful examination of the fruits of scientific research, the picture has become clearer. Fragments of pottery, inscriptions in temples and traces of burnt-out cities give us a mosaic depicting the first appearance of these Philistines, which is unrivalled in its dramatic effect.

Terrifying reports heralded the approach of these alien people. Messengers brought evil tidings of these unknown strangers who appeared on the edge of the civilised ancient world, on the coast of Greece. Ox-waggons, heavy carts with solid wheels, drawn by hump-backed bullocks, piled high with household utensils and furniture, accompanied by women and children, made their steady advance. In front marched armed men. They carried round shields and bronze swords. A thick cloud of dust enveloped them, for there were masses of them. Nobody knew where they came from. The enormous trek was first sighted at the Sea of Marmora. From there it made its way southwards along the Mediterranean coast. On its green waters sailed a proud fleet in the same direction, a host of ships with high prows and a cargo of armed men.

Wherever this terrifying procession halted it left behind a trail of burning houses, ruined cities and devastated crops. No man could stop these foreigners; they smashed all resistance. In Asia Minor towns and settlements fell before them. The mighty fortress of Chattusas on the Halys was destroyed. The magnificent stud horses of Cilicia were seized as plunder. The treasures of the silver mines of Tarsus were looted. The carefully guarded secret of the manufacture of iron, the most valuable metal of the times, was wrested from the foundries beside the ore deposits. Under the impact of these shocks one of the three great powers of the second millennium B.C. collapsed. The Hittite Empire was obliterated.

A fleet of the foreign conquerors arrived off Cyprus and occupied the island. By land the trek continued, pressed on into northern Syria, reached Carchemish on the Euphrates and moved on up the valley of

p 176 -- the Orontes. Caught in a pincer movement from sea and land the rich seaports of the Phoenicians fell before them. First Ugarit, then Byblos, Tyre and Sidon. Flames leapt from the cities of the fertile coastal plain of Palestine. The Israelites must have seen this wave of destruction, as they looked down from their highland fields and pastures, although the Bible tells, us nothing about that. For Israel was not affected. What went up in flames down there in the plains were the strongholds of the hated Canaanites.

On and on rolled this human avalanche by sea and by land, forcing its way all the time towards the Nile, towards Egypt....

In Medinet Habu west of Thebes on the Nile stands the imposing ruin of the splendid temple of Amun, dating from the reign of Ramesses III (1195-1164 B.C.). Its turreted gateway, its lofty columns, and the walls of its halls and courts are crammed with carved reliefs and inscriptions. Thousands upon thousands of square feet filled with historical documents carved in stone. The temple is one vast literary and pictorial record of the campaigns of the Pharaohs and is the principal witness to events on the Nile at that time.

It is more than plain from these records that Egypt was then in a state of acute panic and only too conscious of the danger in which it stood. One of the texts rings with a note of anxious foreboding: "In the eighth year of the reign of Ramesses III.... No country has been able to withstand their might. The land of the Hittites, Kode, 1   Carchemish ... and Cyprus have been destroyed at one stroke.... They have crushed their peoples, and their lands are as if they had never been. They marched against Egypt.... They laid hands on every land to the farthest ends of the earth. Their hearts were high and their confidence in themselves was supreme: 'Our plans will succeed'."

Figure 28 - The Battle between Pharaoh Ramesses III and the Philistines.

Ramesses III made feverish preparations for battle and decreed a general mobilisation: "I manned my borders ... and drew up my armies before them: princes, garrison commanders and warriors. I

1  -- The coastal area of Cilicia and Northern Syria.

p 177 -- turned the river mouths into a strong defensive wall, with warships, galleys and coastal vessels ... fully manned from stem to stern with brave warriors armed to the teeth. The troops were the best that Egypt could muster. They were as ready for battle as lions roaring on the
mountains. The chariot detachments consisted of the swiftest runners, and every first class charioteer available. The horses flew like the wind ready to crush foreign lands under their feet...."

With an enormous fighting force and every able bodied warrior that Egypt could call on, Ramesses III advanced to engage in a great battle on land against the foreign hordes. The inscriptions have nothing very definite to say about this battle. As usual, the Egyptian war reports confine themselves in this case to singing the praises of the victor. "His troops", it is recorded of Ramesses III, "were like bulls ready for battle: his horses were like falcons amid a flock of tiny birds...." But a huge relief still portrays this terrible battle after 3,000 years: the Egyptian commandos have scurried in among the armed enemy trekkers. Fearful slaughter rages among the ponderous ox-waggons carrying the women and children. Under the hooves of the bullocks and horses the bodies of the slain lie in heaps. Victory seems to have been won already, since Egyptian soldiers are seen plundering the ox-waggons.

Egypt had won a battle of prime significance in world history. The enemy land forces had been annihilated. Ramesses III hastened to the coast in a swift chariot, since "they had entered the mouths of the river" with their ships.

This great naval battle is likewise perpetuated on a stone relief in the temple at Medinet Habu: the fleets of the two opposing forces have approached each other. Shortly before their encounter the wind must have suddenly died down, since the sails are reefed. That meant a severe handicap for the foreigners. Their ships could no longer be manoeuvred. The warriors are standing there, ready for the fray but helpless. Their swords and spears were useless except in hand to hand fighting when the ships were close enough together. The calm let the Egyptians have it all their own way. Their vessels, manned by oarsmen, approach the enemy ships at a safe distance, then the archers are given the order to fire. A murderous hail of arrows pour down upon the foreigners who provide a mass target and fall overboard in vast numbers. The bodies of badly wounded and dead men cover the water. When the enemy had been decimated and was in complete disorder, the Egyptians rowed towards them and capsized their boats. Those who escaped death by the hail of arrows or by drowning were killed or captured by Egyptian soldiers on the nearby shore.

Ramesses III had been able to ward off this deadly threat to Egypt on land and sea in these two decisive battles. There had been no victory like it in all the past history of the Nile.

p 178 -- After the victory a gruesome reckoning was made of dead and wounded by hacking off their hands and piling them in heaps. This was the method of counting the numbers of a defeated enemy. About what happened to the women and children of the foreigners the inscriptions tell us nothing. The reliefs show the first P.O.W. camps in history. The defeated soldiers are herded together.

The treatment which the mass of prisoners received was in principle the same as happens today. Drawn up in rank and file they squat on the ground awaiting checking. Even the much maligned questionnaire was included: Egyptian officers dictate to scribes the statements made by the prisoners. Only one matter was differently dealt with in those days. Nowadays prisoners of war have P.O.W. or K.G. painted on their tunics; the Egyptians branded Pharaoh's name on their prisoners' skins. It lasted longer.

It is to the hieroglyphics of these oldest questionnaires in the world that we owe the first historical information about the famous Philistines in the Bible.

Among these "Sea Peoples" as the Egyptians called the foreign conquerors, one racial group assumed special importance, the Peleste or PRST. These are the Philistines of the Old Testament.

Egyptian artists were masters at depicting the physiognomy of foreign races and had an extraordinary ability to distinguish characteristic features. The reliefs at Medinet Habu indicate with this wonted accuracy the faces of the Biblical Philistines. They look like photographs carved in stone 3,000 years ago. The tall slim figures are about a head higher than the Egyptians. We can recognise the special type of dress, and weapons, and their tactics in battle. If we substitute the men of Israel for the Egyptian mercenaries we have a true-to-life picture of the battles which took place years later in Palestine and which reached the height of their fury in the reigns of Saul and David about 1000 B.C.

p 179 -- Chapter 18 -- UNDER THE YOKE OF THE PHILISTINES -- Philistines on the coast - Swan pattern pottery - Beer mugs with filters - Carefully guarded iron monopoly - Philistines occupy the high-lands - Traces of the burning of Shiloh - Choosing a king from dire
necessity - Allenby successfully uses Saul's tactics - Surprising the Turks - Albright finds Saul's castle - Two temples in Beth-Shan - The end of Saul.

And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years - Jud. 13:1.

It was in 1188 B.C. that the Philistines suffered their severe defeat at the. hands of Ramesses III Thirteen years later they were firmly settled on the coastal plain of southern Canaan, the fertile brown plain between the mountains of Judah and the sea. The Bible lists the five cities which they possessed: Askelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gaza and Gath (I Sam. 6:17). Each of these cities, and the land adjoining, which was cultivated by soldiers under the command of paid leaders, was ruled over by a "lord" who was independent and free. For all political and military purposes however the five city rulers always worked hand in hand. In contrast to the tribes of Israel the Philistines acted as a unit in all matters of importance. That was what made them so strong.

The Biblical narrator tells of other groups of these "Peoples of the Sea" who had arrived with the Philistines and had settled down on the coast of Canaan: "Behold I will stretch out mine hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethims (Cretans) and destroy the remnant of the sea coast" (Ezek. 25:16). Crete is an island in the Mediterranean which lies far removed from Israel. Since we have learned of the historical attack of the "Sea Peoples" on Canaan the otherwise obscure meaning of these words has become clear. They fit exactly the situation at that time.

When the Philistines appeared in Canaan a new and distinctive type of pottery also made its appearance. It is easily recognisable as different from the pottery which had previously been in use both in the cities of the Canaanites and in the hill settlements of the Israelites. Throughout the area occupied by the five Philistine cities - and only there - excavations have unearthed this type of ceramic ware. The Philistines must therefore have produced their own pottery.

p 180 -- The first find of this Philistine crockery astonished the archaeologists. They had seen these shapes and colours and patterns before. The leather coloured drinking cups and jars, with red and black geometrical designs and swans cleaning their feathers, were already known as coming from Mycenae. From 1400 B.C. onwards the wonderful pottery made by Mycenaean manufacturers was greatly sought after in the ancient world and their export trade had flooded
every country with them. Shortly before 1200 B.C. with the destruction of Mycenae this import from Greece suddenly stopped. The Philistines must have come by way of Mycenae, and must have started up in Canaan the manufacture of this type of ware with which they were familiar. "Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor?" (Amos 9:7). Caphtor is Crete, the great island that lies close to Greece.

Figure 29 -Philistine jar with swan pattern.

But Philistine pottery illustrates another interesting fact, which is also hinted at in the Bible. Many of their handsome mugs are fitted with a filter, and there can be no doubt what it was used for. They are typical beer mugs. The filter served to keep back the barley husks: they floated about in the home-brewed ale and would tend to lodge in the throat. Large numbers of wine cups and beer mugs have been found in the Philistine settlements. They must have been powerful drinkers. Carouses are mentioned in the Samson stories (Jud. 14:10; 16:25), where the fact is emphasised that the strong man himself drank no alcohol.

Beer is however no Philistine invention. The first great breweries flourished in the Ancient East. In the hostelries of Babylon there were in fact five kinds of beer: mild, bitter, fresh, lager, and a special mixed beer for export and carrying, which was also called honey beer. This was a condensed extract of roots which would keep for a long time. All that had to be done was to mix it with water and the beer was ready an ancient prototype of our modern dry beer for use in tropical countries.

But another discovery was much more important. The Philistines were the first people in Canaan to process iron and they made the most of it. Their graves contain armour, implements and ornaments made of this rare and costly metal, as it then was. As in the case of the Mycenaean jars they manufactured their own iron. The first iron foundries in Canaan must have been built in Philistine territory. The secret of smelting iron was brought back as part of their booty as they drove through Asia Minor, where the Hittites had been the first iron-founders in the world until 1200 B.C.

This formula which they had acquired was guarded by the Philistine

p 181 -- princes like the apple of their eye. It was their monopoly and they traded in it. Israel during this first period of settlement up on the mountains, was far too poor to be able to afford iron. The lack of iron farm implements, of iron nails for building houses and of iron weapons was a severe handicap. When the Philistines had occupied the mountains as well as the plains, they tried to prevent the making of new weapons by prohibiting the trade of smiths. "Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears. But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share and his coulter and his axe and his mattock" (I Sam. 13:19-20).

Equipped with the most up to date weapons, tested and tried in their long experience of military campaigns, organised into a first class political system, there stood the Philistines about 1200 B.C. on the west coast hungry for conquest. They had their eye on the same goal as Israel: Canaan.

Samson's mighty deeds and his pranks are legendary tales (Jud. 14-16). But there are hard facts behind them. The Philistines were beginning to push forward and extend their territory eastwards.

Separated from each other by long valleys, lines of hills sweep up from the coastal plain to the mountains of Judah. One of these long valleys is the valley of Sorek. Samson lived in Zorah (Jud. 13:2) and in Timnath, not far from it, he married a "'daughter of the Philistines" (Jud. 14:1). Delilah too lived there (Jud. 16:4). It was along this valley that the Philistines later on sent back the Ark of the Covenant which they had captured (I Sam. 6:12ff). This penetration of the Philistines into the hill country below the mountains of Judah was only the prelude to the great clash with Israel which followed years later.

Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Eben-Ezer; and the Philistines pitched in Aphek - I Sam. 4:1.

Aphek lay on the northern rim of the Philistine domains. A mound of ruins, Tell el-Muchmar, conceals all that is left of this place which lay on the upper reaches of a river which flows into the sea to the north of Jaffa. From a strategic point of view Aphek was extremely favourably situated. Eastward lay the road to the mountains of central Palestine where Israel had settled. On the edge of the mountain range lay Eben-Ezer where the opposing forces met. At the first encounter the Philistines were victorious. The Israelites in dire straits sent to Shiloh for the Ark of the Covenant, their sacred talisman. In a second encounter they were completely beaten by the vastly superior force of the Philistines. The Israelite army was routed and the victors carried off the sacred Ark as the spoils of war (I Sam. 4:2-11).

The, hill country was occupied, Israel was disarmed, and garrisons

p 182 -- were located in the tribal territories. At their first assault the Philistines had achieved their purpose, central Palestine was in their hands.

This advance of the Philistines must have gone hard with Israel, as can be judged from the contemporary evidence which has been discovered. The temple at Shiloh which Israel had built for the Ark of the Covenant was burnt to the ground. Fifteen miles south of Shechem lies Seilun which was once the flourishing town of Shiloh. On a neighbouring hill lay the sacred precincts, Israel's sanctuary and place of pilgrimage (Josh. 181; Jud. 21:19ff; I Sam. 3:21). After the Old Testament period early Christian and Mohammedan memorials were erected on the site.

Between 1926 and 1929 a Danish expedition carried out excavations at this spot, under the direction of H. Kjaers. The remains of Shiloh clearly indicate that the city was destroyed about 1050 B.C. at the time of the Philistine victory over Israel. Shiloh must have stood in ruins for a long time. For 400 years after its fall the prophet Jeremiah refers to it: "But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel" (Jer. 7:12). Other places in the mountains of Judah shared the same fate as Shiloh. Archaeologists found tell-tale traces of ashes in Tell Beilt Mirsim near Hebron, the Debir of the Bible, and in Beth-zur, south of Jerusalem.

About 1050 B.C. Israel's very existence was threatened. It saw itself to be on the point of losing all the fruits of its conquests and all its work of colonisation lasting almost 200 years. It was on the verge of falling under the yoke of the Philistines and facing an existence of hopeless slavery. The only way to meet this frightful peril would be to amalgamate the loosely federated tribes and form a solid united front. It was in face of this pressure from without that Israel became a nation. In those days there was only one possible form of government, a monarchy. The choice fell upon Saul, a Benjamite, a man renowned for his bravery and his great height (I Sam 9:2). It was a wise choice, for Saul belonged to the weakest tribe (I Sam. 9:21 ) and the remaining tribes would therefore have no cause to be jealous.

Saul constituted his native town Gibeah as the capital (I Sam. 10:26; 11:4), collected round him a small standing army and began guerrilla warfare (I Sam. 13:1ff). By surprise attacks he hunted the Philistine occupation troops out of the tribal territory.

That Saul was a tactician of a high order has recently, after 3,000 years, been demonstrated anew. One example, unique in its way, shows how accurate the Bible can be even in the smallest details and how reliable its dates and information.

We owe to Major Vivian Gilbert, a British army officer, this description of a truly remarkable occurrence. Writing in his reminiscences 1  he

1  - "The Romance of the last Crusade."

p 183 -- says: "In the First World War a brigade major in Allenby's army in Palestine was on one occasion searching his Bible with the light of a candle, looking for a certain name. His brigade had received orders to take a village that stood on a rocky prominence on the other side of a deep valley. It was called Michmash and the name seemed somehow familiar. Eventually he found it in I Sam. 13 and read there: "And Saul, and Jonathan his son, and the people that were present with them, abode in Gibeah of Benjamin but the Philistines encamped in Michmash." It then went on to tell how Jonathan and his armour-bearer crossed over during the night "to the Philistines' garrison" on the other side, and how they passed two sharp rocks: "there was a sharp rock on the one side, and a sharp rock on the other side: and the name of the one was Bozez and the name of the other Seneh" (I Sam. 14:4). They clambered up the cliff and overpowered the garrison, "within as it were an half acre of land, which a yoke of oxen might plough". The main body of the enemy awakened by the melee thought they were surrounded by Saul's troops and "melted away and they went on beating down one another" (I Sam. 14:14-16).

Thereupon Saul attacked with his whole force and beat the enemy. "So the Lord saved Israel that day."

The brigade ma jor reflected that there must still be this narrow passage through the rocks, between the two spurs, and at the end of it the "half acre of land". He woke the commander and they read the passage through together once more. Patrols were sent out. They found the pass, which was thinly held by the Turks, and which led past two jagged rocks - obviously Bozez and Seneh. Up on top, beside Michmash, they could see by the light of the moon a small flat field. The brigadier altered his plan of attack. Instead of deploying the whole brigade he sent one company through the pass under cover of darkness. The few Turks whom they met were overpowered without a sound, the cliffs were scaled, and shortly before daybreak the company had taken up a position on "the half acre of land".

The Turks woke up and took to their heels in disorder since they thought that they were being surrounded by Allenby's army. They were all killed or taken prisoner.

"And so", concludes Major Gilbert, "after thousands of years British troops successfully copied the tactics of Saul and Jonathan."

Saul's successes gave Israel new heart. The pressure of the occupying power on the highlands had certainly been eased, but it was only a short respite. In the following spring the Philistines launched their counter attack.

Towards the end of the winter rainy season they gathered their fighting forces once again in Aphek (I Sam. 29:1). But this time they had a different plan of action. They avoided an engagement in the mountains since Israel knew that country far too well. The Philistine princes

p 184 -- chose rather to advance northwards across the coastal plain to the Plain of Jezreel (I Sam. 29:11), the scene of Deborah's battle "at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo", and then eastwards almost to the banks of the Jordan.

"By a fountain which is in Jezreel" (I Sam. 29:1) - the spring of Harod at the foot of the mountains of Gilboa - king Saul and his army ventured to meet the Philistines on the plain. The result was fatal. At the very first attack the army was scattered, the retreating troops were pursued and struck down. Saul himself committed suicide, after his own sons had been killed.

The triumph of the Philistines was complete. The whole of Israel was now occupied - the central uplands, Galilee and Transjordan (I Sam. 31:7) Saul's body and the bodies of his sons were impaled and exposed on the city walls of Beth-Shan not far from the battlefield. "And they
put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth" (I Sam. 31:10), the goddess of fertility. Israel's last hour appeared to have struck. It seemed doomed to extinction. The first kingdom which began so hopefully had come to a fearful end. A free people had sunk into slavery and its Promised Land had fallen into the hands of foreigners.

The spades of the archaeologists have unearthed from among the masses of heavy black rubble silent evidence of this fateful period. The wind sweeps over the broken and crumbling masonry of the walls which saw the success and the tragedy of Israel. Ruins which witnessed Saul's happiest hours as a young king and also his shameful end.

A few miles north of Jerusalem, near the ancient road which leads to Samaria, lies Tell el-Ful, which means, literally, "hill of beans". This was once Gibeah.

In 1922 a team from the American Schools of Oriental Research began digging there. Professor W. F. Albright, who promoted the expedition, directed the operations. Remnants of walls came to light. After a long interval Albright continued his work at Tell el-Ful in 1933. A log-shaped corner turret was exposed, and then three more. They are joined by a double wall. An open courtyard forms the interior. The total area is about 40 X 25 yards. The uncouth looking structure of dressed stone gives an impression of rustic defiance.

Albright examined the clay sherds which were scattered among the ruins. They came from jars which had been in use about 1020 to 1000 B. C. Albright had discovered Saul's citadel, the first royal castle in Israel, where "the king sat upon his seat, as at other times, even upon a seat by the wall" (I Sam. 20:25). It was here that Saul reigned as king, surrounded by his closest friends, with Jonathan his son, with Abner, his cousin and commander of the army, and with David, his young armour-bearer. Here he forged his plan to set Israel free and from here he led his partisans against the hated Philistines.

The other place where king Saul's destiny was fulfilled and which

p 185 -- research has brought once more to the light of day lies about 45 miles farther north.

On the edge of the Plain of Jezreel rises the great mound of rubble called Tell el-Husn, which is visible far beyond the Jordan valley. This is the site of the ancient Beth-Shan. On the north and south slopes the strong foundation walls of two temple buildings emerge out of the piles of cleared debris.

Archaeologists of the University of Pennsylvania, led by Clarence S. Fisher, Alan Rowe, and G. M. Fitzgerald excavated them in 192 1 and 1933 almost at the same time as king Saul's castle was rediscovered at Gibeah.

Religious objects found among the ruins, principally medallions and little shrines with a serpent motif, indicate that these temples were dedicated to Astarte, the Canaanite goddess of fertility, and to Dagon the chief god of the Philistines, who was half fish half human. Their walls witnessed what the Philistines did to Saul, as the Bible records: "And they put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth; and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-Shan" (I Sam. 31:10). The house of Ashtaroth is the temple ruins on the south side. ". . . and [they] fastened his head in the temple of Dagon" (I Chron. 10:10). That is the temple which has been excavated on the north slope.

p 186 -- Blank

p 187 -- V -- When Israel was an Empire From David to Solomon

Chapter 19 -- DAVID, A GREAT KING -- A man of genius - From armour-bearer to monarch - Unintentional military aid for Assyria - From the Orontes to Ezion-Geber - Revenge at Beth-Shan - New buildings with casemated walls - Finding of the Pool of Gibeon - Jerusalem fell by a stratagem - Warren discovers a shaft leading to the city - The Sopher kept the "Imperial Annals" - Was David called David? - Ink as a novelty - Palestine's climate is unpropitious for keeping records.

So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron: and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord. And they anointed David king over Israel... and he reigned forty years - 2 Sam. 5:3, 4.

The new king was so versatile that it is difficult to decide which of his qualities deserves most admiration. It would be just as difficult to find as gifted and rounded a personality within the last few centuries of our own times. Where is the man who could claim equal fame as soldier, statesman, poet and musician?

Certain it is, in any case, that no people were more devoted to music than the inhabitants of Canaan. Palestine and Syria were renowned for their music as we learn from Egyptian and Mediterranean sources. Part of the essential goods and chattels which the group of members of the caravan, depicted in the wall painting at Beni-Hasan, took with them on their journey to Egypt, were musical instruments. The ordinary household instrument was the eight-stringed lyre.

The lyre travelled from Canaan to Egypt and Greece.

In the New Kingdom of Egypt (1580-1085 B.C.) inscriptions and reliefs deal with a series of themes connected with Canaanite musicians and instruments. Canaan was an inexhaustible treasure house of musicians, from which court chamberlains and seneschals obtained singers and even orchestras to provide entertainment for their masters on the Nile, the Euphrates and the Tigris. Above all ladies' bands and ballerinas were in great demand. Artists with international engagements were by no means a rarity. And king Hezeklah of Judah knew very well what he was doing in 701 B.C. when he sent men and women singers to Sennacherib the formidable king of Assyria.

p 188 -- FIG- 30 - Captive musitians from Judah.

From the depths of despair, from their hopeless situation under the yoke of the Philistines, Israel climbed within a few decades to a position of power, esteem and greatness. All of that was the work of David. He first appears, completely unknown, as Saul's armour-bearer, becomes a condottiere, then a fierce maquis fighter at war with the Philistines and ends up as an old man seated on the throne of a people that had become a great power.

As happened a few centuries earlier at the time of the conquest of Canaan, David's efforts were assisted by favourable external circumstances. Just after the beginning of the last millennium B.C. there was no state in Mesopotamia or Asia Minor, Syria or Egypt, which was in a position to stop an expansion of Canaanite territory.

After the death of Ramesses XI, the last of the Ramessid dynasty, about 1080 B.C. Egypt fell into the greedy hands of a priestly clique who ruled the land from Thebes. Vast wealth had come into the possession of the Temple.

A hundred years earlier, as the Harris Papyrus informs us, 2 per cent of the population was employed as temple slaves and 15 per cent of agricultural land was temple property. Their herds of cattle amounted to half a million head. The priests had at their disposal a fleet of eighty-eight vessels, fifty-three workshops and wharves, 169 villages and towns. The pomp with which the daily ritual of the great deities was carried out beggared all description. To make the temple scales alone, on which the sacrifices at Heliopolis were weighed, 212 pounds of gold and 461 pounds of silver were used. To look after the luxury

p 189 --gardens of Amun in the old royal city of Per-Ramesses in the delta 8,000 slaves were employed.

We get some idea of Egypt's status in the eyes of the outside world during this priestly regime from a unique document, the travel diary of Wen-Amun, an Egyptian envoy, dating from 1080 B.C. Wen-Amun's mission was to get cedar wood from Phoenicia for the sacred barge of the god Amun in Thebes. Herihor, the high pritst, furnished him with only a small amount of gold and silver but with a picture of Amun, which he obviously expected to be more effective.

The frightful experiences which Wen-Amun had to go through on his journey have left their mark in his report. In the seaports he was treated like a beggar and an outlaw, robbed, insulted and almost murdered. He, an ambassador of Egypt, whose predecessors had always been received with the greatest pomp and the utmost deference.

At last Wen-Amun, having had his money stolen on the way, reached the end of his journey. "I came to the port of Byblos. The prince of Byblos sent to me to tell me: 'Get out of my harbour'."

This went on for nineteen days. Wen-Amun in desperation was on the point of returning to Egypt "when the harbour master came to me and said: 'The prince will see you tomorrow!' When tomorrow came he sent for me and I was brought into his presence.... I found him seated in his upper room, with his back leaning against a window.... He said to me: 'What have you come here for?' I replied: 'I have come to get timber for the splendid great barge of Amun-Re, the king of the gods. Your father gave it, your grandfather gave it, and you must also give it. He said to me: 'It is true that they gave it.... Yes, my family supplied this material, but then Pharaoh sent six ships here laden with the produce of Egypt.... As far as I am concerned I am not your servant, nor the servant of him who sent you.... What kind of beggar's journey is this that you have been sent on!' I replied: 'Don't talk nonsense! This is no beggar's errand on which I have been sent."'

In vain Wen-Amun insisted on Egypt's power and fame, and tried to beat down the prince's price for the timber. For lack of hard cash he had to bargain with oracles and a picture of the god which was supposed to guarantee long life and good health. It was only when a messenger sent by Wen-Amun arrived from Egypt with silver and gold vessels, fine linen, rolls of papyrus, cow hides, ropes, as well as twenty sacks of lentils and thirty baskets of fish, that the prince permitted the required quantity of cedars to be felled.

"In the third month of summer they dragged them down to the sea shore. The prince came out and said to me: 'Now, there is the last of your timber and it is all ready for you. Be so good as to get it loaded up and that will not really take very long. See that you get on your way and do not make the bad time of year an excuse for remaining here.'"

p 190 -- David had nothing to fear from a country whose ambassador had to put up with disrespect of this sort. He advanced far into the south and conquered the kingdom of Edom, which had once refused Moses permission to pass through it on the "King's Highway" (2 Sam. 8:14). This meant for David an accession of territory of considerable economic significance. The Arabah desert, which stretches from the south end of the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqabah, is rich in copper and iron, and what David needed most of all was iron ore. His most dangerous opponents, the Philistines, had a monopoly of iron in their clutches (I Sam. 13:19-20) Whoever controlled Edom could break the Philistine monopoly. David wasted no time: "And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of the gates, and for the joinings: and brass in abundance without weight" (I Chron. 22:3).

The most important caravan route from South Arabia, the famous "Incense Road", likewise terminated in the south of Edom. By pressing forward to the shores of the Gulf of Aqabah the sea route lay open to him across the Red Sea to the remote shores of South Arabia and East Africa.

The situation was also favourable for a northward advance.

In the broad plains at the foot of Hermon and in the fertile valleys which lay in front of Antilebanon, Arab desert tribes had settled down and become static. They belonged to a race which was destined to play an important role in Israel's life, the Aramaeans, called simply Syrians in our Bible. They had founded city-states and smallish kingdoms as far down as the river Yarmuk, south of the Lake of Galilee over in Transjordan.

About 1000 B.C. they were in the process of reaching out eastward into Mesopotamia. In the course of it they came up against the Assyrians, who were within the next few centuries to become the strongest power in the ancient world. After the downfall of Babylonia, the Assyrians had subjugated Mesopotamia as far as the upper reaches of the Euphrates. Cuneiform texts recovered from palaces on the Tigris and dating from this period, mention Assyria as being threatened by danger from the west. These were the Aramaeans whose thrusting attacks were made with ever increasing force.

In face of this situation David pushed north through Transjordan right up to the Orontes. The Bible says: "And David smote Hadarezer king of Zobah unto Hamath, as he went to stablish his dominion by the river Euphrates" (I Chron. 18:3). Reference to contemporary Assyrian texts shows how accurately these words in the Bible describe the historical situation. King David attacked the Aramaean king as he was on his way to conquer Assyrian territory on the Euphrates.

Without being aware of it David was aiding those same Assyrians who later wiped out the kingdom of Israel.

The frontier posts of Israel were moved forward by David to the

p 191 -- fertile valley of the Orontes. His most northerly sentries patrolled Lake Homs at the foot of the Lebanon, where now petroleum gurgles through the great pipelines from distant Kirkuk. From this point it was 400 miles as the crow flies to Ezion-Geber on the Red Sea, the most southerly point in the kingdom.

Excavations have revealed plenty of traces of the acquisitions and expansion of the kingdom under David. There is a clear trail of evidence which accompanies his advance, including the burning of the cities of the Plain of Jezreel. Not much later than 1000 B.C. Beth-Shan, together with its pagan sanctuaries, was levelled to the ground. Archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania dug up on these sites of ruthless fighting, shattered temples, deep layers of ashes on top of ruined walls, ritual objects and pottery belonging to the Philistines. David' s vengeance administered a crushing blow to the city which had compassed the shameful end of the first king of Israel, a blow from which it did not recover for many years to come. There is no indication above the layer of ashes which points to any habitation having existed there during the centuries immediately following.

Various building projects dating from the earlier years of David's reign remain in some state of preservation, principally fortresses in Judah which had been erected for defence against the Philistines. The structures clearly reflect the pattern of Saul's stronghold in Gibeah. They have the same rough-hewn casemated walls.

Seven miles north of Jerusalem, American excavations in 1956 brought to light not only traces of the walls of the town of Gibeah, which is so frequently mentioned in the Bible, but also uncovered the scene of a bloody encounter in these olden, days. As we are told in II Samuel, once upon a time on this spot there took place a murderous hand-to-hand combat between supporters of the rival generals Joab and Abner - twelve on each side, the one lot on the side of David, the other owing allegiance to the surviving son of Saul. According to 2 Sam. 2:13, they "met together by the pool of Gibeon". Beneath a field of tomatoes in el-Jib, as the place is now called, Professor J. B. Pritchard, of Columbia University, discovered the "Pool of Gibeon", apparently in its day a well known spot. He found a circular shaft, over thirty feet in diameter and thirty feet deep, which had been driven vertically into bed rock. A spiral path led down a ramp cut into the inside wall. Below that a winding staircase, with two openings for light and air, descended for a further forty-five feet to the reservoir itself, chiselled out of solid limestone. When the rubble which covered the whole lay-out had been cleared away, the great cistern began to fill slowly again with water from the fissures in the rock as it had done 3,000 years ago. This Biblical "Pool of Gibeon" had also provided the town with an ample supply of fresh drinking water during an emergency or in time of siege.

Valuable evidence as to the celebrated wealth of the

p 192 -- place - "because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities" (Josh. 10:2) - was collected by the American scholars from among the rubble of the vast cistern. It is now clear that the source of Gibeon's prosperity was a flourishing and well organised wine trade. Sixty handles belonging to clay wine-pitchers, together with the appropriate clay stoppers and fillers, were stamped in ancient Hebrew characters with firms' trade marks - among them vinters with genuine Biblical names. Repeatedly the stamp of "Gibeon" cropped up and a word that probably means "walled vineyard" and might indicate a wine of special quality. Other handles again bore the names of towns in Judah, like Jericho, Succoth and Ziph (Josh. 15:24) to which the various consignments were to be delivered.

Quite near the reservoir, further diggings in the winter season of 1959-60 led to the discovery of extensive wine cellars. Sixty-six almost circular cavities about six feet deep and the same in diameter had been carved out of the rock and sealed with round stone bungs. Some of these cellars had obviously been used as wine presses for trampling out the grapes; other cavities, protected by a waterproof cover, could be identified as fermentation vats. The total storage capacity so far discovered approaches 50,000 gallons.

In view of this new evidence of what was at one time a flourishing wine industry at Gibeon, a hitherto apparently insignificant point in the Biblical narrative acquires fresh significance. It concerns an incident which took place while the Israelites were bent on the conquest of Canaan. We are told in Josh. 9:3-5 that "when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai they did work wilily ... and took ... wine bottles, old and rent and bound up ... and old garments upon them". In this guise they appeared before Joshua and succeeded in hiding from him both where they came from and what a prosperous place it was.

Finally, in Jerusalem, later David's capital, the foundations of a tower and large sections of the revetment certainly point to David as the builder. "So David dwelt in the fort and called it the city of David. And David built round about....

The romantic manner in which the stoutly guarded stronghold of Jerusalem fell into David's hands was brought to light last century partly by chance and partly by the scouting proclivities of a British army captain.

On the east side of Jerusalem where the rock slopes down into the Kidron valley lies the "Ain Sitti Maryam", the "Fountain of the Virgin Mary". In the Old Testament it is called "Gihon", "bubbler", and it has always been the main water supply for the inhabitants of the city. The road to it goes past the remains of a small mosque and into a vault. Thirty steps lead down to a little basin in which the pure water from the heart of the rock is gathered.

p 193 -- In 1867 Captain Warren, in company with a crowd of pilgrims, visited the famous spring, which, according to the legend, is the place where Mary washed the swaddling clothes of her little Son. Despite the semi-darkness Warren noticed on this visit a dark cavity in the roof, a few yards above the spot where the water flowed out of the rock. Apparently no one had ever noticed this before because when Warren asked about it nobody could tell him anything.

Filled with curiosity he went back to the Virgin Fountain next day equipped with a ladder and a long rope. He had no idea that an adventurous and somewhat perilous quest lay ahead of him.

Behind the spring a narrow shaft led off at first horizontally and then straight up into the rock. Warren was an alpine expert and well acquainted with this type of chimney climbing. Carefully, hand over hand, he made his way upwards. After about 40 feet the shaft suddenly came to an end. Feeling his way in the darkness Warren eventually found a narrow passage. Crawling on all fours he followed it. A number of steps had been cut in the rock. After some time he saw ahead of him a glimmering of light. He reached a vaulted chamber which contained nothing but old jars and glass bottles covered in dust. He forced himself through a chink in the rock and found himself in broad daylight in the middle of the city, with the Fountain of the Virgin lying far below him.

Closer investigation by Parker, who in 1918 went from the United Kingdom under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund, showed that this remarkable arrangement dated from the second millennium B.C. The inhabitants of old Jerusalem had been at pains to cut a corridor through the rock in order that in time of siege they could reach in safety the spring that meant life or death to them.

Warren's curiosity had discovered the way which 3,000 years earlier David had used to take the fortress of Jerusalem by surprise. David's scouts must have known about this secret passage, as we can now see from a Biblical reference which was previously obscure. David says: "Whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smiteth the Jebusites..." (2 Sam. 5:8). The Authorised Version translated as "gutter" the Hebrew word "sinnor", which means a "shaft" or a "channel".

Warren solved only half the problem, however, for the opening of the shaft lay outside the walls which in his day were thought to be those of the old Jebusite Jerusalem dating from before David's time. Anybody who had climbed through the shaft would still have found himself facing the Jebusite wall. It was not until the sixties of this century that the extensive excavations of Kathleen M. Kenyon cleared the matter up. The wall of what had been considered the most ancient Jerusalem was, in fact, not so old as had been thought. A much older wall was revealed which dated from before David's day and this wall ran along the slope below the opening to the entrance to the spring. David's men,

p 194 -- who had climbed through the shaft, consequently emerged not in front of but a good distance behind what was actually Jerusalem's oldest wall; they were right inside the town which they were aiming to capture. This confirms the second Book of Samuel 5:8 and thus removes much of the puzzling nature of this passage.

It was in David's reign that the exact recording of Old Testament history began. "We must regard the David narratives as largely historical," writes Martin Noth, who is an extremely critical German theologian.

The increasing clarity and lucidity of contemporary records is closely associated with the gradual creation of a political system which was David's great achievement and something new for Israel. A loose federation of clans had become a nation: a settlers' colony grew into an empire which filled Palestine and Syria.

For this extensive territory David created a Civil Service, at the head of which, next to the Chancellor, stood the Sopher. "Sopher" means "writer of chronicles" (2 Sam. 816, 17). A writer in the second highest position in the state!

In face of the millions of secretaries and typists in the modern world, and the thousands of tons of paper that they put into their machines and cover with type every day, the legendary glory of the "scribe" has long since departed. Not even the enviable post of chief secretary to an oil magnate can be compared with that of her ancient colleague either in salary or still less in influence. It was only on the stage of the ancient orient that the scribes played the role of their profession incomparably and uniquely. And little wonder, considering how much depended on them. Mighty conquerors and rulers of great empires were their employers and they could neither read nor write!

This can clearly be seen from the style of the letters. It is not the person to whom the letter or message is sent who is addressed in the first instance. Greetings and good wishes from scribe to scribe take precedence. There is also a request to read out the contents of the letter distinctly, and, most important, correctly and under no circumstances to suppress any of it. How things were managed within this scribal sphere of authority is indicated by a vivid scene in the Foreign Office of Pharaoh Merenptah. The scribes' department is divided into three sections. In each of the two side aisles about ten secretaries sit tightly packed together. Some of them have one foot on a stool, great rolls of papyrus lie across their knees. The spacious middle section is reserved for the chief. A zealous slave keeps the troublesome flies off him with a fan. At the entrance stand two commissionaires. One is telling the other "Spray some water and keep the office cool. The chief is busy writing."

No doubt the administrative office at the court of Jerusalem was considerably less impressive. The young state of Israel was still too

p 195 -- rustic and too poor for that. Yet David's "recorder" must have been an important and awe-inspiring official. It was his job to compile the "Imperial Annals", which doubtless were the basis of all the factual Biblical references to the administrative system and social structure under David. Among these are the great national census conducted on the approved Mari-plan (2 Sam. 24) as well as the information about his bodyguard of "Cherethites and Pelethites", a kind of Swiss guard, which consisted of Cretans and Philistines (2 Samuel 8:18; 15:18; 20:7).

FIG- 3 - A Government office on the Nile.

Undoubtedly the "Sopher" would also be the first to write down the new name of his sovereign.

This name has presented a problem to the specialists, for they repeatedly came across a very similar word in texts from the Ancient East, texts from Mari; the word "davidum". Did this puzzling word mean "commander of an army", "supreme commander", "chief", and was David's name consequently no name at all but a title which had become a name when he mounted the throne? In addition, the Bible more than once mentions a certain Baal-hanan, the son of an Edomite king Saul (Gen. 36:38 and I Chron. 1:49). On the other hand, a certain Elhanan is reported as having vanquished David's adversary Goliath and on another occasion Goliath's brother (2 Sam. 21:19 and I Chron. 20:5). The names Baal-hanan and Elhanan obviously contain the names of the Canaanite gods Baal and El.

Was David's name then originally Baal-hanan or Elhanan and did he first take the name David after his accession to the throne? Thirty years ago a number of scholars were convinced of this, but since then greater caution has been shown, at least concerning the linguistic connection between the words "David" and "davidum", for it has become apparent that "davidum" does not mean "commander of an army" or anything similar, but "defeat". And nobody has ever thought of deriving the title of a commander from that word! Nor can it be accepted that personal names like Baal-hanan or Elhanan, elements of which are the names of Canaanite gods, would have met with the approval of the Biblical writers. The problem of David's name still remains unsolved.

This question of "writing" conjures up one of the arguments levelled by critics of the Bible. In Egypt waggon loads of papyrus have been found, similarly in Babylonia and Assyria mountains of cuneiform tablets - where then are the literary documents of Palestine?

Archaeologists and meteorologists may be permitted to answer this question.

p 196 -- About the beginning of the last millennium B.C. Canaan deserted its angular cuneiform script and the use of clumsy clay tablets in favour of a less cumbersome method of writing. Until then the text of the document had to be scratched in soft clay with a stylus. The clay had then to be baked or dried in the sun, a time-wasting procedure, before the bulk letters were ready for despatch. A new type of writing, with wavy lines, became more and more fashionable. This was the alphabet which we have already encountered in the attempts at writing made by the Semitic miners at Sinai. Stylus and clay were clearly unsuited for these new smoothly rounded letters. So they looked for new writing utensils and found them in their baked clay tablets, inkpot and ink. Archaeologists call these little tablets with their flowing script "Ostraca". They were replaced in special cases by papyrus, the most elegant writing material of the ancient world. The Wen-Amun report shows how greatly this Egyptian export was in demand. The prince of Byblos received in return for his cedars 500 rolls of it: well over a mile of writing paper!

Palestine has a damp climate in winter on account of its rainfall. In such a climate ink is very quickly washed off hard clay, and papyrus soon disintegrates. Greatly to the distress of archaeologists, scientists and historians, all of them thirsting for knowledge, practically the sum total of Canaan's records and documents has been lost to posterity for this reason. The fact that the archaeologists were able to produce such an impressive haul from Egypt is simply the result of its proximity to the desert and the unusually dry climate.

p 197 -- Chapter 20 -- WAS SOLOMON "A COPPER-KING"? -- Expedition to the Gulf of Aqabah - Iron ore and malachite - Glueck discovers Ezion-Geber - Desert storms used as bellows - The Pittsburgh of old Israel - Shipyards on the Red Sea - Hiram brought the timber - Ships' captains from Tyre -The mysterious land of Ophir - An Egyptian portrait of the queen of Punt - U.S. archaeologists buy a Tell - A model dig at Megiddo - The fateful plain of Jezreel - Royal stables with 450 stalls?

So king Solomon was king over all Israel (I Kings 4:1) and Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen - I Kings 4:26.

And Solomon built ... all the cities of store... and cities for his chariots and cities for his horsemen - I Kings 9:17-19.

And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-Geber which is beside Eloth ... and they came to Ophir - I Kings 9:26, 28.

And all king Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold ... none were of silver: it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon. For the king had at sea a navy ... bringing gold and silver, ivory and apes, and peacocks - I Kings 10:2, 22.

And the house which king Solomon built for the Lord ... was overlaid with gold - I Kings 6: 2, 22.

And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt and linen yarn ... and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did they bring them out by their means - I Kings 10 28,29.

Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold - I Kings 10:14.

Doesn't it sound like a fairy-tale?

Any man, even a king, about whom so much is told, is hard put to it to escape the charge of boastingz. And any chronicler, telling such a story, easily gets a reputation for exaggeration. There are certainly stories in the Bible which are regarded by scholars as legends, such as the tale of Balaam the sorcerer and his talking ass (Num. 22) or the tale of Samson whose long hair gave him strength (Jud. 13-16). But this most fabulous of all stories is really no fairy tale at all.

The archaeologists dug their way to the heart of the trustworthiness of these Solomon stories - and lo and behold Solomon became their unique showpiece.

p 198 -- When the "fairy-tale" of king Solomon - as many still believe it to be - has been stripped of its frills, there remains a framework of sober historical facts. That is one of the most exciting discoveries of recent times. It was only in 1937 that a wealth of surprising finds during excavations by two American expeditions produced proof of the truth of this Biblical story.

FIG. 32 - Life in a: harem. "Solomon had 700 wives..." (IKings 11:3).

Packed high with the latest equipment, with drills, spades and picks and accompanied by geologists, historians, architects, excavators and the photographer who is now indispensable on a modern expedition, a caravan of camels is leaving Jerusalem. Its leader is Nelson Glueck, who like the others is a member of the famous American Schools of Oriental Research.

Soon they have left the brown mountains of Judah behind. They head south through the dreary Negev. Then the caravan enters Wadi el-Arabah, the "Valley of the Desert". The men feel as if they had been transported into some scene from a primeval world, where some Titanic power out of the depths had left its mark when it formed the earth. The "Valley of the Desert" is part of the mighty fissure which begins in Asia Minor and ends in Africa.

The scientists pay their respects to this impressive vista and then turn to the task which awaits them. Their questing eyes roam over the steep rock-face. Light and shade vary with the sun, and here and there the stone is hacked away and dented. They find that it consists of muddy yellow felspar, silvery white mica, and, where the stone shows up reddish black, iron ore and a green mineral - malachite, copper spar.

Along the whole length of the wadi the American scientists come upon deposits of iron ore and copper. Wherever their tests indicate the presence of ore they find galleries let into the rock, all that remains of mines long since deserted.

At last the caravan reaches the shores of the Gulf. However invitingly the white houses of Aqabah, the Eloth of the Bible, seem to beckon them in the glaring sun, however tempting are the sounds of this busy eastern seaport after their trek through the desolate wadi, nevertheless
the scientists turn their backs on this intersection of three worlds.  1
1 --
Africa, Arabia and Palestine/Syria.

p 199 -- Their goal is "Tell el-Kheleifeh". This lonely mound, which seems no more than a pile of rubble, rises inland out of the shadeless plain.

Careful probing with spades prefaces the first stage of the excavation and produces unexpectedly quick results. Fish hooks come out; they are made of copper. Then tiles and remnants of walls. Some coarse looking lumps of some material in the vicinity of the Tell show traces of green. They turn out to be slag. Everywhere around them the scientists meet this sandstone with the distinctive green colour.

In his tent one evening Glueck reflects on the results of the work up to date. It has produced nothing remarkable. Meantime the whole of Transjordan is still on the programme. Glueck wants to track down the past in Edom, Moab, Ammon, even as far as Damascus. Looking through his notes, he stops and ponders. Iron-ore and malachite in the Arabah - and, in this mound of debris in front of his tent, remains of walls, slag, and copper fish-hooks - and all of it in the immediate neighbourhood of the Gulf which the Bible calls the "Red Sea". Thoughtfully Glueck turns up the Bible passage which mentions the Red Sea in connection with a great king: "And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom" (I Kings 9:26). In Biblical times Edom came right down to the gulf of the Red Sea. Could this mound be ... ?

It is decided to make a thorough investigation of Tell el-Kheleifeh next day. As they dig up the material from the test-shafts they find that at several points they come upon wall foundations at the same level. Below that is virgin soil. Sherds give them an indication of the date of construction of the masonry. It is within the period of Solomon's reign, after 1000 B.C.

The time factor compelled Glueck to stop operations. This particular expedition had other tasks ahead. But in the following years the Americahs continued the excavations in three stages, which ended in 1940 and confirmed Glueck's theory. It appeared that the first ruins that
came to light had once been workers' dwellings. Then came ramparts of the casemated type, the unmistakable building style of the first Iron Age. After that remains of an extensive settlement were excavated. The most interesting things were casting-moulds and a vast quantity of
copper slag.

Casting-moulds and copper slag in the middle of the scorching pitilessly hot plain?

Glueck tried to find an explanation for this strange fact. Why did the workshops have to be located right in the path of the sand-storms which almost incessantly sweep down the wadi from the North? Why were they not a few hundred yards farther on in the shelter of the hills, where there were also fresh water springs? The astonishing answer to these questions was not forthcoming until the last excavation period.

pp 200 & 201 -- King Solomon's Empire 965-926 B.C.

p 202 -- In the middle of a square walled enclosure an extensive building came into view. The green discolouration on the walls left no doubt as to the purpose of the building: it was a blast furnace. The mud-brick walls had two rows of openings. They were flues: a skilful system of air passages was included in the construction. The whole thing was a proper up-to-date blast furnace, built in accordance with a principle that celebrated its resurrection in modern industry a century ago as the Bessemer system. Flues and chimneys both lay along a north to south axis. For the incessant winds and storms from the Wadi el-Arabah had to take over the role of bellows. That was 3,000 years ago: today compressed air is forced through the forge.

One question alone still remained unanswered: how was the copper refined in this ancient apparatus? Smelting experts of today cannot solve the mystery.

Earthenware smelting-pots still lie about in the vicinity: many of them have the remarkable capacity of 14 cubic feet. In the surrounding hill-slopes the multiplicity of caves hewn out of the rock indicate the entrances to the galleries. Fragments of copper sulphate testify to the
busy hands that worked these mines thousands of years ago. In the course of fact-finding excursions into the surrounding country the members of the expedition succeeded in identifying numerous copper and iron mines in the wadis of the Arabah desert.

Eventually Nelson Glueck discovered in the casemated wall of the mound of rubble a stout gateway with a triple lockfast entrance. He was no longer in any doubt. Tell el-Kheleifeh was once Ezion-Geber, the long-sought vanished seaport of king Solomon: "And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-Geber which is beside Eloth...."

Ezion-Geber was however not only a seaport. In its dockyards ships for ocean travel were also built. But above all Ezion-Geber was the centre of the copper-industry. Nowhere else in the "Fertile Crescent", neither in Babylonia nor in Egypt, was such a great furnace to be found. Ezion-Geber had therefore the best smelting facilities in the ancient orient. It produced the metal for the ritual furnishings of the Temple at Jerusalem - for the "altar of brass", the "sea", as a great copper basin was called, for the "ten bases of brass", for the "pots, shovels, basins" and for the two great pillars "Jachin and Boaz" in the porch of the Temple (I Kings 7:15ff; 2 Chron. 4). For "in the plain of Jordan did the king cast them in the clay ground between Succoth and Zarthan. ..." (IKings 7:46) One of the most recent finds in Biblical archaeology fell to the lot of a Dutch expedition which has now established the site of the former of these two places. At Tell deir Alla in Transjordan, where the river Jabbok leaves the hills six miles before it joins the Jordan, the expedition discovered traces of Succoth, the Israelite city dating from the days of Joshua.

Glueck's delight at these unparalleled finds can still be detected in

p 203 -- the official report which gathered together the results of the researches at the Gulf of Aqabah: "Ezion-Geber was the result of careful planning and was built as a model installation with remarkable architectural and technical skill. In fact practically the whole town of Ezion-Geber, taking into consideration place and time, was a phenomenal industrial site, without anything to compare with it in the entire history of the ancient orient. Ezion-Geber was the Pittsburgh of old Palestine and at the same time its most important seaport."

FIG 33 - Brass laver from Solomon's Temple (I Kings 7:27ff; 2 Chron 4:6) (Reconstruction.)

King Solomon, whom Glueck describes as the "great copper-king", was on this basis reckoned among the greatest exporters of copper in the ancient world. Research on other sites completed this picture of Palestine's economy under king Solomon. South of the old Philistine city of Gaza, Flinders Petrie dug up iron-smelting installations in Wadi Ghazze. The furnaces are like those at Tell el-Kheleifeh but smaller. David had disputed the Philistines' right to their monopoly of iron and he had extracted their secret smelting process as one of the prices of

p 204 -- their defeat. Then under Solomon the iron and copper deposits were apparently mined on a large scale and smelted.

Twenty years after Professor Glueck's first discovery of the presence of copper and slag heaps, an archaeologist, Benno Rothenberg, made a striking find in the same Wadi el-Arabah of a large copper mine dating from the same time. In the spring of 1959, twenty miles north of Ezion-Geber in Wadi Timna, Rothenberg's expedition came across extensive workings where the stone had been cut out of the rocks in thick slices and then subjected to the first process of removing the slag in basalt smelting vats.

For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land ... a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass" - Deut. 8:7-9.

So runs part of the detailed description of the Promised Land which Moses gives the children of Israel. Copper and iron in Palestine? The work of the archaeologists has now produced evidence showing how true is this description which the Bible gives, and introduces a new factor into our picture of Old Palestine which we shall in future have to take into account, namely its remarkable industrial development.

Solomon was a thoroughly progressive ruler. He had a flair for exploiting foreign brains and foreign skill and turning them to his own advantage. That was the secret, otherwise scarcely understandable, of how the simple peasant regime of his father David developed by leaps and bounds into a first class economic organism. Here also was to be found the secret of his wealth which the Bible emphasises. Solomon imported smelting technicians from Phoenicia. Huram-Abhi,  1   a craftsman from Tyre, was entrusted with the casting of the Temple furnishings (I Kings 7:13, 14). In Ezion-Geber Solomon founded an important enterprise for overseas trade. The Israelites had never been sailors and knew nothing about shipbuilding. But the Phoenicians had behind them practical experience accumulated over many centuries. Solomon therefore sent to Tyre for specialists for his dockyards and sailors for his ships: "And Hiram  2   sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea...." (I Kings 9:27).

Ezion-Geber was the well-equipped and heavily defended export centre for the new foreign trade. From Ezion-Geber the ships set sail on their mysterious voyages to distant and unfamiliar shores. Ophir? - where was the legendary land of Ophir, the "warehouse" in which the ancient orient purchased the costliest and choicest commodities?

Many a scholarly quarrel has broken out about Ophir. Someone was always claiming to have found it. In 1871 Carl Mauch of Germany came across a large area covered with ruins in Rhodesia. Fifteen years
1 -- A.V. = Hiram.
2 -- The king of Tyre.

p 205 -- later Steinberg of South Africa dug up, a few miles to the south, pre-Christian mining installations which were thought to be connected with the temple city. Rock-tests were supposed to show that gold and silver had at one time been quarried there. In 1910 the famous African explorer, Dr. Karl Peters of Germany, photographed carvings on this site in which experts claimed that they detected odd Phoenician characteristics.

This mysterious land of Ophir has however so far eluded the grasp of the scientists. Many indications nevertheless point to East Africa. Experts like Prof. Albright suggest that it was located in Somaliland. That would tie up very well with what the Bible says about the length of time it took to get there.

"Once in three years came the navy.,." (I Kings 10:22). "The fleet may have sailed from Ezion-Geber in November or December of the first year," suggested Albright, "and returned in May or June of the third year. In this way the hot weather in summer would be avoided as much as possible. The journey in this case need have taken no more than eighteen months." Further, the nature of the merchandise "gold, silver, ivory and apes" (I Kings 10:22) points to Africa as the obvious place of origin.

Fig. 34 -- One of Queen Hatshepsut's ships returning from Punt (Ophir) with a cargo of myrrh, and apes.

The Egyptians were well informed about "Punt", which may be identifiable with Ophir. They must have been on the spot and kept their eyes open. How otherwise could these impressive pictorial representations of "Punt" have originated, which light up the walls of the terraced temple of Deir el-Bahri? Wonderful coloured reliefs adorn this temple on the west side of Thebes, lending splendour and charm to a dusky lady - the queen of Punt - and her retinue. As usual the Egyptians have here too lavished devoted attention to the details of the costumes, the round huts, the animals and plants of "Punt". Anyone looking at

p 206 -- them has a clear picture in his mind's eye of what this legendary Ophir looked like.

Inscriptions adjoining the reliefs give an account of the sensational expedition which a woman ordered to be equipped and to set out for "Punt" in 1500 B.C. On the throne of the Pharaohs at that time, as co-regent of Tutmose III, sat the famous Queen Hatshepsut, "the first great woman in history" as Breasted the Egyptologist calls her. In response to an oracle of the god Amun, which enjoined that the routes to "Punt" should be explored and that trade relations with the Red Sea ports which had been interrupted by the Hyksos wars should be resumed, the queen sent out a flotilla of five sea-going vessels in the ninth year of her reign. They were to bring back myrrh trees for the temple terraces. The fleet sailed from the Nile along a canal in the eastern part of the delta into the Red Sea and "arrived safely in Punt", where it exchanged Egyptian produce for a precious cargo of myrrh trees, ebony, gold, as well as all sorts of sweet smelling wood and other exotic articles like sandalwood, panther skins, and apes.

A display such as they had never seen before met the gaze of the Thebans as at the close of a successful trip the strange collection of dark-skinned natives of Punt made their way to the queen's palace with the marvellous products of their country. "I have made his garden into another Punt, as he commanded me..." says Hatshepsut exultingly, referring to the myrrh trees on the temple terraces. Egyptologists found dried up roots of myrrh in the hot yellow sand in front of the temple of Deir el-Bahri.

Like the Thebans, men and women of Israel must also have stood in wonder and amazement on the quayside of Ezion-Geber when their king Solomon's fleet returned from distant Ophir and discharged its cargo of sandalwood "and precious stones, gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks" (I Kings 10:11, 22).

Archaeological work can normally only be started when permission to excavate has been given by the landowner or by the government of the country. This is not always easy to obtain, quite apart from the fact that in the course of the operations protests or restrictions can make life difficult for the investigators. In 1925 the Americans hit upon an unusual way of ensuring that they would be left in peace to get on with the work. They bought without a moment's hesitation the mound of rubble called Tell el-Mutesellim in the Plain of Jezreel from ninety native proprietors, peasants and shepherds, lock, stock and barrel. For the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago had in mind a model excavation for the whole of the Middle East, the most comprehensive, most painstaking, and most accurate investigation that had ever been started in Palestine.

Tell el-Mutesellim covers the site of the Megiddo of the Bible. This discovery is based on the first large-scale excavation which was under-

p 207 -- taken on this spot by the German Oriental Society under Dr. J. Schumacher between 1903 and 1905.

Like a small edition of Table Mountain, Tell el-Mutesellim lies in the heart of a unique scenic setting. Looking down from the plateau is like looking down on a vast green lake. Into the far distance stretches the great plain, the "valley of Jezreel" (Jos. 17:16), in which the green meadows of the fenland and well-stocked fields of grain alternate with one another. Flocks of cranes and storks frequent the spot. Where the plain ends, the wooded hump of Carmel stands guard over the Mediterranean shore. To the north the hills of Galilee with the little village of Nazareth sweep upwards, tinted a delicate blue, and far to the right the sombre summit of Mt. Tabor bars the view into the deep cleft of the Jordan valley.

Nothing in this fertile triangle, this friendly countryside girt with gentle lines of hills, suggests that this tiny bit of land was for many thousands of years the scene of mighty battles and of momentous and decisive history.

About 1500 B.C. PharaohThutmose III, riding in a "golden chariot", led his army through a narrow pass into the plain and attacked the Canaanites, who fled in terror and complete disorder to Megiddo. On the same plain the Israelites, incited by the heroic Deborah, smashed the supremacy of the Canaanite charioteers, Gideon surprised the plundering camel-borne nomads from Midian, Saul lost the battle against the Philistines, and king Josiah of Judah died about 600 B.C. as he and his men threw themselves in vain against the armed might of Egypt under Pharaoh Necho. Ruins mark the site of the Frankish castle of Faba, which the knights of St. John and the Templars occupied during the Crusades, until Saladin drove them off the plain after a frightful massacre. On the 16th April 1799 there was a battle here between the Turks and the French. With only 1,500 men Kleber, the French general, held 25,000 of the enemy at bay. The French fought like heroes from sunrise till noon. Then over a ridge to the rescue charged a troop of 6oo mounted men. The officer at their head was called Napoleon Bonaparte. After the victorious "Battle of Tabor" Napoleon rode up into the hills of Galilee and ate his supper in Nazareth. In 1918 British cavalry under Lord Allenby swept through the same pass as Thutmose III and destroyed the Turkish army which was encamped on the plain.

A silent witness of all these events was Tell el-Mutesellim, where Clarence S. Fisher began operations on the model excavation in the spring of 1925.

The hill was literally cut into slices inch by inch - like cutting a cake except that the slices were horizontal ones. The centuries flashed past like a kaleidoscope. Every layer that was removed signified a chapter of world history from the 4th to the 10th century B.C.

p 208 -- Of the four top layers Stratum I contained ruins from the time of the Persian and Babylonian empires. Cyrus, king of Persia, destroyed the power of Babylon in 539 B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had conquered Syria and Palestine fifty years earlier in 597 B.C. The walls of an unusually solidly built palace still remain from that period. Stratum II provided evidence of Assyrian rule with ruins of a palace dating from the 8th century B.C. Tiglath-Pileser III subdued Palestine in 733 B.C. Stratum III and Stratum IV incorporated the Israelite period.

The most important find in this case was two seals with old Hebrew letters on them. One of them bore the inscription, "Shema, servant of Jeroboam". Jeroboam I was the first ruler of Israel after the kingdom had been divided (926-907 B.C.). A stone preserved another familiar name: Pharaoh Sheshonk I, of Egypt. The Bible calls him Pharaoh Shishak. In 922 B.C., the fifth year of king Jeroboam's reign, he attacked Palestine.

After almost ten years of toil, picks and spades had reached the layers dating from the time of king Solomon, who had died four years before the attack of Sheshonk in 926 B.C. The lowest level of rubble in Stratum IV then produced sensational surprises from king Solomon's time for the archaeologists, Gordon Loud and P. L. 0. Guy, as well as for posterity.

In Solomon's day a new method of construction was adopted in the case of public buildings, defence walls, etc. Instead of the previous style of building this new type involved the introduction of smooth dressed stones at the corners and at intervals along the walls. On the lowest level of the rubble of Stratum IV ruins of a palace were exposed which displayed this characteristic feature. They are enclosed by a square wall whose sides are about 60 yards long. Additional protection was afforded by the handsome entrance gateway flanked by three pairs of close-set pillars. Archaeologists came across similar town gates with this threefold security in Ezion-Geber and in Lachish. A building with massive walls that was excavated almost at the same time turned out to be a granary, one of the "cities of store that Solomon had" (I Kings 9:19). Storehouses of this kind were also found at Beth-Shan and Lachish. Megiddo was the administrative centre of the 5th District in the Israel of Solomon's day. Solomon's representative in the palace, who was also responsible for the deliveries of taxes in kind to the "city of store" was "Baana, the son of Ahilud, to him pertained Taanach and Megiddo" (I Kings 4:12).

Although these finds were remarkable they were not sensational. The sensation was still lying untouched in the heart of Tell el-Mutesellim as if the old mound had been keeping the best to the last. In the course of the excavations there appeared among the rubble on the edge of the Tell a flat stone surface, studded with stone stumps, ranged one behind the other in long rows and square in shape.

p 209 -- Loud and Guy had at first no idea what it could have been. There seemed to be no end to this remarkable series of flat surfaces which emerged yard by yard out of the rubble. It occurred to Guy that they might be the remains of stables. Did the Bible not, speak of the untold horses of king Solomon?

Amid the generally monotonous sameness of a dig that had lasted several years with its daily stint of carrying away, emptying out, sifting and arranging every fragment worth considering, Guy's idea gave at once a new fillip to the excavations, which even the digging gangs shared.

The archaeologists' astonishment grew with every new structure which came to light. They found that several large stables were always grouped round a courtyard, which was laid with beaten limestone mortar. A 10-foot wide passage ran down the middle of each stable. It was roughly paved to prevent the horses from slipping. On each side, behind the stone stumps, lay roomy stalls, each of which was exactly 10 feet wide. Many of them had still remains of feeding troughs and parts of the watering arrangements were still recognisable. Even for present day circumstances they were veritable luxury stables. judging by the extraordinary care which had been lavished on buildings and services, horses in those days were at a premium. At all events they were better looked after than were human beings.

When the whole establishment was uncovered, Guy counted single stalls for at least 450 horses and sheds for 150 chariots. A gigantic royal stable indeed. "And this is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised: for to build ... the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo..." (I Kings 9:15). "And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen: and he had a thousand and four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he bestowed in the cities for chariots..." (I Kings 10:26). In view of the size of the royal stable at Megiddo and the stables and chariot sheds of similar type which have been found at Tell el-Hesi, at Taanach and also at Jerusalem, the Biblical references must be regarded as mere hints at the reality. These tremendous results of the excavations give us a clear conception of the lavishness to which old Israel was accustomed in its imperial days.

Megiddo was after all only one of the garrisons for Solomon's new chariot corps, which formed part of the king's standing army.

In one of the ancient stable buildings which were cut deep into the rock under the high walls of the city of Jerusalem the Crusaders tethered their horses after the conquest of the Holy City by Godfrey of Boulogne almost 2,000 years after Solomon.

Horses and chariots alike were considered in Solomon's day to be worth-while trading commodities. Israel had indeed in this matter a complete monopoly (I Kings 10:28, 29),

p 210-- FIG. 35. "And a chariot came ... out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver" ( I Kings 10 29).

All the important caravan routes between Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor went through Solomon's kingdom. Egypt was the chief exporter of war-chariots "... the king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price. And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver." Egyptian wheelwrights were unsurpassed craftsmen in building swift two-wheeled chariots for war and hunting. The hardwood for them had to be imported from Syria. This explains the high rate of exchange. According to the Bible one chariot was worth four horses (I Kings 10:29). In this connection it will not be necessary to insist on the fact that the "shekels of silver" mentioned by the Bible are an anachronism since minted coins were still unknown in King Solomon's day.

The horses came from Egypt, "and from Koa" as another tradition tells us. "Koa" was the name of a state in Cilicia which lay in the fertile plain between the Taurus Mountains and the Mediterranean. After the destruction of the kingdom of Mitanni by the Hittites, Cilicia became the land of horse breeders and the livery stables of the ancient world. Herodotus mentions that later on the Persians fetched the best horses for their Imperial Messenger Service from Cilicia.

Israel's trading partners in the north were the "Kings of Syria and the Kings of the Hittites" (I Kings 10:29) . This too is historically accurate. The kingdom of the Hittites had long been extinct by Solomon's day but some smaller successor states had taken its place. One of them was discovered in 1945 by Professor H. T. Bossart of Germany, although it is a century younger than Solomon. This was the royal castle in the forest of Mt. Karatepe, not far from Adana in the southeast of Turkey. Asitawanda, who built it in the 9th century B.C., was one of these "Kings of the Hittites".

p 211 -- The most recent researches have thrown light on Solomon, the "copper king", providing not only confirmation of statements in the Bible but also the refutation of views previously held. The Israeli professor of archaeology, Benno Rothenberg (Tel Aviv), who was born at Frankfurt am Main, has made very important contributions in this field. Mention has already been made on several occasions of his investigations at Timna in the Wadi Arabah area. What Rothenberg discovered there contradicts, however, the opinion held by Nelson Glueck: between the 12th century B.C. and the time of the Romans there was no extraction of copper in the "Biblical" mines at Timna. In other words, King Solomon's mines were not producing in Solomon's day, in the 10th century B.C. In fact, the Bible gives us no cause to regard Solomon as a "copper king" for there is no mention of copper exploitation at his time. On the contrary, the Bible tells us expressly that Solomon obtained the metal he required from plunder as well as from the store of his father David (I Chron. 18:8; 22:3, 14). Once again the Bible is right. It, does not refer to copper mining in Solomon's time and it has not been possible so far to prove that any took place.

Where then does the persistent tradition about "Solomon's mines" originate? Today light has also been thrown on this question. It has nothing to do with the Bible, but a great deal with Sir Rider Haggard's novel King Solomon's Mines which appeared at the end of last century. Even the great Bible archaeologist Nelson Glueck, without doubt one of the most prominent figures in this field, was deceived by this pseudoBiblical tradition of recent date.

Perhaps even greater caution than with "Solomon's mines" is required in the attempt to localise Ophir, which continues to defeat all attempts by specialists to identify it. What the German geologist Carl Mauch found in Rhodesia - and to a large extent destroyed by inexpert excavations - was Zimbabwe which was not built until some 2,000 or 2,500 years after Solomon's day, some time, therefore, between the 11th and the 15th century A.D. Zimbabwe has nothing in common with the building practices of the Phoenicians or the Arabs, nor has it any connection with the Awwam Temple of the moon god Ilumquh or Almaqah near distant Marib in Southern Arabia, a temple which, by the way, also does not date from Solomon's time but probably from the 8th or 7th century B.C. No, Zimbabwe is definitely a product of indigenous architecture, however unpleasant this fact may be for the present government of Rhodesia. The expert who made this discovery and published it, Peter S. Garlake, was deprived of his post as Curator of the Commission for Historic Monuments in Southern Rhodesia and was obliged to emigrate to a black African country. Obviously a certain amount of courage is required even today in the exercise of the archaeologist's profession and discoveries are not always followed by fame alone!

p 212 -- just as it was with Solomon's copper mines, of which the Bible makes no mention, so it is with the no less famous "Solomon's stables" in Megiddo. The opinion has become more widely accepted that they date not from Solomon's time but from that of King Ahab of Israel (c. 875 to 852 B.C.), who according to the Assyrian account of the Battle of Qarqar (c. 854 B.C.) assembled 2,000 chariots, the largest force of war-chariots in the anti-Assyrian alliance. And so, basically the Biblical story has once more been confirmed, for we read (I Kings 9:15) merely that Solomon fortified Megiddo and not that he built stables there and that, speaking generally, he had "chariots and horsemen" (I Kings 10:26), but not that they were garrisoned in Megiddo.

It remains merely to add that in the view of a number of experts, among them the Israeli specialist in Biblical archaeology, Professor Yohanan Aharoni of Tel Aviv, what are reputed to be "Solomon's stables" not only date from the time of Ahab but also are not stables. It seems they are storehouses for supplies. Similar buildings destined for the same purpose have been excavated by Yohanan Aharoni in Beersheba.

Fairly long and quite detailed passages of the Bible, chapters 6 and 7 of I Kings, chapters 3 and 4 of 2 Chronicles and chapters 40 to 43 of the prophet Ezekiel have received striking confirmation. These passages all refer to King Solomon's most famous building, the Temple in Jerusalem.

As excavations are impossible within the Temple area, we do not know what remains today of Solomon's construction beneath the stones of Herod the Great's temple pavement and the rock dome (Qubbet es-Sachra) built by the Omayyads, one of the most magnificent examples of Islamic architecture. Yet we know from the descriptions in the Bible as well as from parallel finds from the Canaanite-Phoenician region that this temple was a model construction such as was continually encountered in Semitic temples from the early Stone Age onwards. It consists of three connecting halls, access to each of which is possible only through the preceding one. The "small temple" of Tell Tainat (9th century B.C.), the late Bronze Age Canaanite temple from Layer XV in excavation section H at Hazor (13th century B.C.), and the Iron Age temple on the northwest corner of the citadel of Tell Arad show the closest contacts with the Biblical accounts. The latter is of particular interest as this is an Israelite sanctuary and is chronologically closest to Solomon's temple.

Connected to these three temple rooms there is first a porch (ulam) to which a "hall" was attached (hekal). The Authorised Version also refers to the hekal as the "greater house" or simply as the "Temple", although strictly speaking only a part of the temple complex is meant. It was this "greater house" that gave admittance to the actual sanctuary, the Holy of Holies (debir). The entrance to the hekal was flanked by two pillars,

p 213 --.Jachin and Boaz. In fact, two stone slabs were found on Tell Arad, one on each side of the entrance to the hekal, which might well have served as the bases of pillars. The entrance to the middle room in the late Bronze Age temple of Hazor is also flanked by the bases of pillars.

Although it dates from the century after Solomon, the temple of Tell Tainat still belongs architecturally as it were to Solomon's time. It confirms the statements in the Bible concerning certain constructional details which are made mainly in connection with the building of Solomon's palace (I Kings 71:1-12).

According to I Kings 6:10 and 6:33, it appears that wood was used to cover the building both inside and out, and that wood was also used for beams and posts. Exactly the same thing occurred at Tell Tainat. The walls of this temple were built of bricks on a stone foundation - brick walls which were supported by wooden posts!

The temple at Tell Tainat was Phoenician and Solomon obtained Phoenician workmen for the construction of his Temple at Jerusalem from King Hiram of Tyre (I Kings 5:32; 2 Chron. 2:6; 2:12f). The interior appointments of the temple were in part Phoenician or at least influenced by the Phoenicians. In particular, this was probably so with the cherubim which watched over the ark in the Holy of Holies (Ex. 25:18-22; 37:7-9 ; I Kings 6:23-25; 2 Chron. 3:7; 3:10-14). Similar carved statues providing us with an idea of the appearance of this strange creature of dual nature have been discovered in the Phoenician cultural region. The same assertion can be made regarding the ritual vessels described in the Bible which have been encountered in the Canaanite-Phoenician region and even as far away as Cyprus, which lay within the Phoenician orbit. The archaeologist can be compared to a tracker, who fits one indication, in with another like a mosaic as soon as he has begun to follow a trail. In the search for models of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem it seems that all the indications point to Canaan and Phoenicia.

p 214 -- Chapter 21 -- THE QUEEN OF SHEBA AS A BUSINESS PARTNER -- "Arabia Felix", the mysterious land - Death-march of 10,000 Romans - Number One exporter of spices - First news of Marib - Halevy and Glaser have a dangerous adventure - When the great dam burst - American expedition to Yemen - The temple of the moon in Sheba - Camels: the new long distance transport - Export talks with Solomon.

And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon with hard questions at Jerusalem, with a very great company, and camels that bare spices, and gold in abundance and precious stones - 2 Chron. 9:1.

For thousands of years richly laden caravans have made their way from "fortunate Arabia" to the north. They were well-known in Egypt, in Greece and in the Roman Empire. With them came tales of fabulous cities, of tombs filled with gold, tales which persisted through the centuries. The Roman Emperor Augustus determined to find out the truth about what camel drivers continually extolled in their remote country. He instructed Aelius Gallus to fit out a military expedition and to satisfy himself on the spot as to the truth of these incredible tales about south Arabia. With an army of 10,000 Roman soldiers Gallus marched south from Egypt and proceeded along the desolate shores of the Red Sea. Marib, the legendary capital city, was his goal. But he was never to reach it. For in the pitiless heat of the desert, after endless clashes with wild tribes, decimated by treacherous diseases, his army went to pieces. The few survivors who reached their native land again had no reliable factual details to add to the legendary stories of "Arabia Felix".

"In fortunate Arabia", writes Dionysius the Greek in A.D. 90, "you can always smell the sweet perfume of marvellous spices, whether it be incense or wonderful myrrh. Its inhabitants have great flocks of sheep in the meadows, and birds fly in from distant isles bringing leaves of pure cinnamon."

South Arabia was even in the ancient world export country Number One for spices and it is still so today. Yet it seemed to be shrouded in dark mystery. No man had ever seen it with his own eyes. "Arabia Felix" remained a book with seven seals. The first man in recent times to embark upon this dangerous adventure was Carsten Niebuhr, a

p 215 -- German, who led a Danish expedition to south Arabia in the 18th century. Even he only got as far as Sana. He was still 60 miles from the ruined city of Marib when he had to turn back.

A Frenchman, J. Halevy, and an Austrian, Dr. Eduard Glaser, were the first white men actually to reach this ancient goal about a century ago. Since no foreigner, far less a European, was allowed to cross the frontier of the Yemen, and no permit could be obtained, Halevy and Glaser embarked on an enterprise which might have cost them their lives. They chartered a sailing boat and landed secretly in the Gulf of Aden disguised as Orientals. After an arduous journey of over 200 miles through parched and desolate mountain country they eventually reached Marib. Greatly impressed by what they saw they threw caution to the winds and clambered around the ruins.

Suspicious natives came towards them. The two scholars knew that it would cost them their lives if their disguise was discovered and took to their heels. At last after many adventures they reached Aden by a circuitous route. However they had been able to smuggle out copies and rubbings of inscriptions, concealed under their burnous, on the strength of which they were able to prove that Marib really existed.

Travelling merchants likewise brought inscriptions with them later on. Up to the present day their number reaches the sizeable total of 4,000. Scholars have examined and sifted the material. The script is alphabetic and therefore originated in Palestine. Dedicatory inscriptions give us information about gods, tribes and cities of a million inhabitants. And the names of four countries - "The Spice Kingdoms" - which are mentioned are: Minaea, Kataban, Hadhramaut and - Sheba.

The kingdom of Minaea lay in the northern part of Yemen and is referred up to the 12th century B.C. Writings of the 9th century B.C. mention its southern neighbour, the land of the Shebans. Assyrian documents of the 8th century B.C. likewise speak of Sheba and of close trade relations with this country whose kings were called "Mukarrib", "priest-princes".

Gradually, with the discovery of documentary evidence, this fairy-tale country of Sheba began to take definite shape.

A gigantic dam blocked the river Adhanat in Sheba, collecting the rainfall from a wide area. The water was then led off in canals for irrigation purposes, which was what gave the land its fertility. Remains of this technical marvel in the shape of walls over 60 feet high still defy the sand-dunes of the desert. Just as Holland is in modern times the Land of Tulips, so Sheba was then the Land of Spices, one vast fairy-like scented garden of the costliest spices in the world. In the midst of it lay the capital, which was called Marib. For 1,500 years this garden of spices bloomed around Marib. That was until 542 B.C. - then the

p 216 -- dam burst. The importunate desert crept over the fertile lands and destroyed them. "The people of Sheba", says the Koran, "had beautiful gardens in which the most costly fruits ripened." But then the people turned their backs upon God, wherefore he punished them by causing the dam to burst. Thereafter nothing but bitter fruit grew in the gardens of Sheba.

In 1928 the German scholars Carl Rathjens and H. von Wissmann uncovered the site of a temple near Sana which had been first seen by their countryman Niebuhr. It was a significant start but almost another quarter of a century was to elapse before the greatest team of experts so far set out on an expedition at the end of 1951 to solve the archaeological riddle of Sheba. "The American Foundation for the Study of Man" provided the expedition with unusually large financial resources. The organiser of the enterprise was an extremely versatile palaeontologist from the University of California, Wendell Phillips, then only twenty-nine years old. After long drawn-out negotiations they succeeded in getting permission from King Imam Achmed to excavate at Marib. Marib lies at the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula about 6,000 feet up on the eastern spurs of the mountain range that skirts the Red Sea. The archaeologists started with high expectations.

A long column of Jeeps and trucks rolled northwards in a cloud of dust through barren mountain country with neither roads nor paths. Suddenly like a phantom out of the shimmering yellow sand dunes there appeared before them massive ruins and columns - "Haram Bilqis". It was the ancient Ilumquh temple of Awwam, a centre of worship wrapped in legend, in the neighbourhood of Marib, the capital of the old Arabian kingdom of Sheba. Although partly covered by sand dunes as high as houses the lines of this oval-shaped temple over 300 feet long were clearly recognisable. A cursory examination of the sanctuary reveals a circular shape similar to that of the Zimbabwe ruins in Rhodesia where at one time the search for the Biblical Ophir was made. Closer investigation has shown, however, that the conformities are purely superficial. Zimbabwe, moreover, which was built between the 11th and the 15th centuries A.D., is around two thousand years younger than the old moon god sanctuary at Marib.

According to an inscription on the wall, Ilumquh, god of the moon, was worshipped in "Haram Bilqis". Masses of sand covered the temple which stood in the middle of the oval. Digging therefore began on the entrance to the great circle. The archaeologists wanted to try to approach the temple gradually from that point.

Under a boiling sun a gatehouse of surprising splendour and beauty was exposed amid understandable excitement. Wide steps covered with bronze led inside. The inner court was surrounded by a pillared hall. Stone columns 15 feet high once bore a roof which shielded it from the sun. Flanked by pillars on each side the processional way led from

p 217 -- this point to the sanctuary of the moon god. An unusual ornamental fixture caused astonishment. From a height of 15 feet glittering fountains of water must in those days have played into this quiet courtyard. As it descended the water was caught in a narrow channel which then wound its way through the whole pillared court.

What must have been the feelings of pilgrims who made their way past these splashing sparkling fountains, fanned by the drowsy fragrance of incense and myrrh, through the pillared courts of this most marvellous edifice in old Arabia.

FIG- 36. - MAP: In Marib a U.S. expedition discovered the Temple of the Moon in the Kingdom of Sheba in 1951.

The digging went steadily forward until they were within a few yards of the temple. The archaeologists could see in front of them the wonderful temple gate, flanked by two slender columns - but at this point the excavation had to be precipitately abandoned. The chicanery of the governor of Marib which had been going on for weeks had now reached a dangerous point and the members of the expedition were no longer sure of their safety. They had to rise and run, leaving everything behind them. Fortunately they had some photographs among the few things they had been able to salvage on their hasty escape to Yemen.

Nearby in the Hadhramaut three digs were carried out in the following few years which were crowned with more success.

Soon after the experts had begun to evaluate the results of these four brief and somewhat dramatic expeditions, Professor W. F. Albright could say: "They are in process of revolutionising our knowledge of Southern Arabia's cultural history and chronology. Up to now the results to hand demonstrate the political and cultural primacy of Sheba in the first centuries after 1000 B.C."

Just as king Solomon's ships made long sea voyages through the Red Sea to Arabia and Africa, so long distance travel began on the Red Sea coast route through the southern Sea of Sand. The new form of transport called, not unjustly, "Ships of the Desert", consisted of camels. They were able to compass distances which were hitherto reckoned impossible. An unsuspected development both in trade and transport through these vast desolate territories took place about 1000 B.C. thanks to the taming and training of these desert animals. South Arabia, which had for so long been almost as far away as the clouds, was suddenly brought into the Mediterranean world and into closer contact with the other kingdoms of the Old World. Just as with the introduction of stratosphere aircraft America was suddenly brought closer to Europe in

p 218 -- transatlantic services, so was it also, even if on a different scale, with south Arabia and the Old World.

Fig. 37. - MAP of Southern Arabia trade routes.

Previously it was by the employment of donkeys, plodding endlessly and painfully month after month, each short day's journey governed by the distance from water hole to water hole, and always in danger of attack, that the treasures of Arabia trickled northwards along the ancient Incense Road through 1,250 miles of desert. With the arrival of the new type of long-distance transport, however, a wide range of goods began to flow out of "fortunate Arabia". The new method was quicker,

p 219 -- almost independent of water holes and therefore not tied to the old traffic routes which zig-zagged from well to well. It had also a greater capacity. The camel could carry many times the burden which an ass could carry.

The terminus of the Incense Road was Israel. Solomon's official agents, the "king's merchants" took delivery of the costly wares. It also depended on them whether the caravans would be allowed to proceed on their journey through Solomon's kingdom to Egypt, Phoenicia and Syria.

No wonder that "the fame of Solomon" came to the knowledge of the queen of Sheba (I Kings 10:1). Bearing all this in mind, if we read carefully the tenth chapter of the First Book of Kings, we shall think of it no longer in terms of a "pious story" or of the queen of Sheba as a character in a fairy tale. On the contrary the whole passage rings true and is completely intelligible. "And she [i.e. the queen of Sheba] came to Jerusalem ... and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart" (I Kings 10:2). The queen of Sheba had assuredly quite a number of things she wanted to talk about. The head of a state whose chief export trade could only be with and through Israel, and that for unavoidable geographical reasons, would certainly have plenty to discuss with the king of that country. We should nowadays describe the affair more concretely as trade talks and should send experts minus crowns to other countries for discussions. They too would carry with them in their diplomatic bags presents which would show the respect due to the head of the state, like the queen of Sheba.

Admittedly, however vividly we are able to imagine all this, and however colourfully popular Oriental tradition embellishes the relationship between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba - throughout the East they became one of the "classical" pairs of lovers of popular tradition - the Queen of Sheba nevertheless retained a certain majestic distance.

It is a fact that popular tradition once more does indeed connect the Sheban Awwam temple at Marib with this "queen", but there is no doubt that this temple does not date from the time of Solomon (10th century B.C.). It was probably not built until the 8th or even the 7th century B.C. and consequently is considerably more recent than Solomon. But there are other considerations - although women such as Queen Hatshepsut and Queen Tewosre had ruled in Ancient Egypt centuries before Solomon, any non-Biblical indication of a scientifically reliable nature of a ruling princess during the time of Solomon has been denied us in southern Arabia. The Queen of Sheba, to whom we seemed already to have drawn so near, thus once again becomes inaccessible.

p 220 -- Chapter 22 -- ISRAEL'S COLOURFUL DAILY LIFE -- Israel's love of ornamentation - Secrets of the boudoirs of Palestine - Sleeping with myrrh and aloes - The Balsam gardens of Jericho - Mastic, a favourite chewing gum - Perfumes of Canaan - Did the Egyptians invent the bed? - An ostracon describes a cloak being taken in pledge - Noisy flour-mills.

Amid these revelations of Egyptian, Babylonian or Assyrian splendour to which archaeology has borne witness, we have been inclined to forget until now the grey and apparently monotonous daily life of Israel. Certainly there has been nothing to record which could compare with the golden treasure of Troy, no Tutankhamun, no charming Nofretete. But was the daily life of Israel really so drab, with no colour and no sparkle?

The Israelites loved bright colours. They coloured their dress, the walls of their houses and the faces of their women. Even in the days of their patriarchs their delight in colour was apparent: "Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children and he made him a coat of many colours" (Gen. 37:3). One of the pictures in the tomb at Beni-Hasan shows this type of coat with a wonderful red and blue pattern. Red and blue were the colours for men's wear, green seems to have been reserved for women. During the desert days mention is made of "blue and purple and scarlet" (Ex. 25:4). "Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet..." (2 Sam. 1:24), cries David in his grief after the death of the first king. "And she had a garment of divers colours upon her," it is recorded of Tamar, daughter of David, "for with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins apparelled" (2 Sam. 13:18).

Nature had given the land of Canaan one of the most wonderful painters' palettes. The children of Israel only needed to stretch out their hands. Pomegranates and saffron yielded a lovely yellow, madder-root and safflower a fiery red, woad a heavenly blue: there was also ochre and red chalk. The sea donated the queen of all dye merchants, the murex snail. Its soft colourless body turned purple in the sunlight. That was its undoing. Vast mountains of empty snail shells have been found at Tyre and Sidon, which leads us to the conclusion that this was the centre for the extraction of purple. The Phoenicians were the first to create a proper industry for the extraction of purple in their seaports, but later Palestine too devoted itself to the profitable business of snail catching.

p 221 -- The textile town of Beth-Asbea in south Judah was famous for byssus, the finest kind of bleached linen. "10 shirts of byssus" are actually mentioned in an inscription of Esarhaddon, the mighty king of Assyria. Hebron and Kirjath-Sepher had the reputation of being important centres of the dye industry. Great stone basins and things like cauldrons with inflow and outflow pipes, which were dug up in these places turned out to be dyeing vats. In Tell Beit Mirsim, the
ancient Debir, they were au fait even with the technique of cold dyes. "That saith, I will build me a wide house," says Jeremiah (22:14), "... and it is cieled with cedar and painted with vermilion." Walls were varnished, mosaic chips and fabrics, leather and wood were dyed, as also were the lips, cheeks, and eyelids of beautiful women. "Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet ... thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate...", "the hair of thy head like purple ...", "... how much better ... the smell of thine ointments than all spices" (Song of Songs 4:3 ; 7:6 ; 4:10), sings king Solomon himself in his Song of Songs, one of the most beautiful love songs in the world.

FIG. 38.- Stone dyeing plant in ancient Israel.

In highly poetic language it refers to Israel's delight in adornment and discreetly deals with the secrets of the beauty-parlour. These perfumes and paints, ointments and hair dyes, choice and expensive, manufactured with the best ingredients that the world could provide would still do credit to the much lauded cosmetics industry of Europe and overseas.

Sweet smelling perfumes have always been highly prized; aromatic resins were not only primarily esteemed as incense in the ritual of the temple, but they had also their place in everyday life, in the home, in clothing, on the hair and in divans and beds.

"I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry ... of Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon" (Prov. 7:16) runs the warning against the artful wiles of the adulteress. "All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad" is the song of praise in Ps. 45:8.

Botanists have investigated these stories that often sound like fairy tales, and have hunted up the ingredients of perfumes and the suppliers of dyes. They found them among delicate flowers and herbs, in the sap of shrubs and blossoms. Many came from foreign lands, but many still grow in Palestine today.

From India came cassia (Cinnamomum Cassia), a tree with a cinnamon-like bark, and calamus (Andropogon Aromaticus), also called ginger-grass. They came across the Indian Ocean in the course of

p 222 -- foreign trade to the packing stations for spices in South Arabia and made their way from there by caravan to the Mediterranean countries.

Cinnamon had a world tour behind it. Originally it came from China, then on to Persia, thence to India, where it became indigenous and was exported to Arabia.

Incense was obtained from the Boswellia bush. Its home is in Arabia and Somaliland, like the Commiphora Myrrha, the myrrh tree. The cradle of the aloe is the island of Socotra at the lower end of the Red Sea, whence comes its name Aloe Succotrina.

There was many a dispute about the origin of balsam. The Bible seemed to be really in error, for botanists know very well that the balsam bush (Commiphora Opobalsamum) grows only in Arabia.

How could Ezekiel (27:17) claim that Judah and Israel had sent to Tyre "wax, honey, oil and balsam" (Moffatt)?

The botanists and Ezekiel are both right. The botanists had merely forgotten to look up Josephus, the great Jewish historian, where he tells us that there has been balsam in Palestine since the time of Solomon. The bushes were cultivated principally in the neighbourhood of Jericho. Josephus also answers the question as to how they got there. They were reared from seeds which had been found among the spices which the queen of Sheba brought as gifts.

That seems a daring assertion.

But there is, a further bit of evidence. When the Romans entered Palestine, they actually found balsam plantations in the plain of Jericho. The conquerors prized the rare shrub so highly that they sent twigs of it to Rome as a sign of their victory over the Jews. In A.D. 70 Titus Vespasian put an imperial guard in charge of the plantings to protect them from destruction. A thousand years later the Crusaders found no trace of the precious bushes. The Turks had neglected them and allowed them to die.

Mastic, which Ezekiel also mentions, is still found in Palestine. These are the yellowish-white transparent globules from a pistachio-bush (Pistacia Lentiscus). They are greatly valued for their perfume and are used medicinally. Children gladly surrender their last baksheesh for a few drops of this native chewing-gum, which was wisely extolled in ancient times as being good for teeth and gums.

In the Promised Land the following aromatic resins are indigenous: Galbanum from a parsley-shaped plant (Ex. 30:34), Stacte from the Storax bush (Ex. 30:34), Ladanum from the rock-rose and Tragacanth (Gen. 37:25) from a shrub of the clover family. Botanists found all the Biblical spices.

The receptacles for these often expensive items have been found by archaeologists under the debris of walls, among the ruins of patrician houses, and in royal palaces. Bowls of limestone, of ivory and sometimes of costly alabaster, with little pestles, were used for mixing the

p 223 -- aromatic ingredients of the finest unguents. The recipes of experts in ointments were greatly sought after. Tiny bottles of burnt clay were used for keeping perfumes. In larger jars and jugs the scented spices were replaced with olive oil. Oil was well known for keeping hair and skin in good condition. Even poor folk rubbed it into their hair and skin, without the scented and generally very expensive ingredients. They got plenty of oil from their olive groves.

Washing in water was a daily necessity and was done as a matter of course. They washed before and after meals, washed the feet of their guests and washed themselves each evening. Stone basins, foot baths and clay bowls found throughout the whole country during excavations, confirm the numerous Biblical references to this practice. (Gen. 18:4; 19;2; 24:32; Song of Songs 5:3; Job 9:30; Luke 7:44; Mark 7:3 etc.) Lyes from plants and minerals provided lotions and soap (Jer. 2:22; Job 9:30).

FIG. 39. - Stone footbath, with heel-rest, handles and waste-pipe.

"A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me: he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts" (Song of Songs 1:13). This is a transference of ideas referring to the discreet practice whereby women carried a small bag containing myrrh under their dresses. Neither curling pins, nor hair pins, nor, mirrors - brightly polished metal discs - failed to find a place on the dressing table. These important items of beauty culture counted as luxury imports from the Nile, where they had been regarded as indispensable by the wives of the Pharaohs for many dynasties.

However much the prophets railed against it they were never able to drive the ancient equivalents of rouge and mascara completely out of the boudoirs of the wealthy.

Women were fond of decorating their hair with delicate yellow sprays of the lovely Loosestrife bush. But they were even more fond of a yellowish red powder which was extracted from the bark and from the leaves of the same shrub. The Arabs call it Henna. With this henna they dyed their hair, their toe nails and their finger nails. Astonished archaeologists found nail varnish of this bright red hue on the hands and feet of Egyptian mummies. Cosmetic laboratories and factories still use henna despite all recent developments. Eyebrows and eyelashes were tinted with Galena, powdered Lapis-lazuli gave the desired shadows on the eyelids. Dried insects provided, as in the modern lipstick, the necessary carmine for a seductive mouth.

In view of the dainty perfume flasks, the ivory ointment boxes, the mixing jars and rouge pots, which have been salvaged from the ruins of Israelite cities, we can well imagine how harsh the threats of the prophet Isaiah sounded in this world which cared so much for colour,

p 224 -- cosmetics and perfume: "And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle, a rent; and instead of well-set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty" (Is. 3:24)

In the Old Testament there is certainly mention of sitting at table on couches but no one goes to bed in our sense. The bed is a rare de luxe item of furniture.

The question whether the bed was invented in the Nile region is one that we cannot answer with certainty. Naturally beds were to be found in all the countries of the Ancient East and one has even been found in a middle Bronze Age grave (grave H 18) at Jericho. Together with other items
this grave also contained a table.- It can nevertheless be stated without fear of contradiction that beds were morecommon in Egypt than elsewhere. With great delight Sinuhe on his return observes: "I slept on a bed once more." But even 500 years later a bed was still a novelty. For when the Princess of Mitanni, Taduchepa, presumably afterwards Queen Nofretete, was married into the Egyptian royal family, she brought bedspreads as her dowry, admittedly expensively woven, but only bedspreads. The royal palace in her home country did not know what a bed was - everybody slept on the floor.

FIG. 40. - Spice-mill (left) and stone grater for grinding corn.

FIG. 41. - Simple oil lamp and seven-pointed candlestick.

In Israel too only court circles and the well-to-do possessed so expensive an item. The plain man's bed was his cloak. At night he wrapped himself in it (Ex. 22:27). The law made allowance for this in that while it declared that a man's "bed" could be taken in pledge, that was only permissible during the day. At night he had to have it back again (Ex. 22:26). A lucky chance led to the discovery in 1959 among the ruins of Yavne Yam, eight miles south of Tel Aviv, of a unique document which records an actual case of a cloak being taken in pledge. In a letter of the 7th century B.C., the text of which is clearly written in ink on a fragment of pottery, an "ostracon", a peasant from whom such a cloak had been taken in pledge, defends himself against the charge of being in debt. The archaeologists could make out distinctly ... "And he took thy servant's cloak after I had brought in the harvest ... and all my brothers will testify truthfully on my behalf that I am not in his debt." The "cloak" was in reality only a woollen cover and seems to have been designed for any emergency. As well as keeping out the cold in our sense

p 225 -- and serving as a bed it was also used as a carpet (2 Kings 9:13; Matt. 21:7, 8).

The bed was never regarded as the ideal place to rest either in Israel or in the Ancient East in general. It was a rare luxury and always remained so. Its cousin the divan, however, likewise a product of the "Fertile Crescent", became famous for its comfort and its cushions. With its arrangement of pillows during the day which were spread out at night, it was the prototype of our modern variety. What even bombed-out Central Europe and the smallest 20th-century households
have been able to afford was the last word in furniture 3,000 years ago. The divan was also known in Israel. "And satest upon a stately bed, and table prepared before it ..." (Ezek. 23:41).

We are prone to thunder against the nerve shattering noise of our machine age and often wish the good old days of peace and quiet would come back again. Was Israel any better off?

Instead of the blaring of loudspeakers, from daybreak onwards houses and tents echoed to the sound of stone hand-mills. At crack of dawn began the grinding of the corn and pounding it into flour. This was as much the woman's job as grinding coffee today. Only grinding flour was incomparably harder and heavier work. It often took two of' them to turn the heavy stone.

The threat of a thorough going anti-noise campaign which is often talked about nowadays would have meant something frightful in those circumstances. If the noise of the mill stopped, hunger crept over the land. Jeremiah had a vision of this as he foretold what would happen during the Exile in Babylon: "Moreover I will take from thee the voice of mirth ... the sound of the millstones and the light of the candle, and this whole land shall be a desolation...." (Jer. 25:10, 11).

p 226 -- picture pages
a. Rock Bastion
b. Extracting Copper
c. View of the Model Excevation at Tell el-Mutesellim
d. King Solomon's Stables
e. Reconstruction of the Stable
f. Hittite Warriors
g. House of the Lord built by Solomon
h. Prof W. F. Albright and W. Phillips
i. In the Land of the Queen of Sheba
j. Gezer Schoolboy Practicing Writing
k. Ivory Receptacles for Cosmetics and Ointment
l. Ornaments

p 227 -- SECTION VI -- Two Kings - Two Kingdoms From Rehoboam to Jehoiachin -- Chapter 23 -- THE SHADOW OF A NEW WORLD POWER -- The Empire splits - Frontier posts between Israel and Judah - Napoleon reads Shishak's report on Palestine - Samaria, the northern capital - Traces of Ahab's "ivory palace" - A mysterious "third man" - Arabs blow up victory monument in Moab - Mesha the mutton-king's song of triumph - Assyria steps in - The black obelisk from Nimrud - King Jehu's portrait in Assyria - Consignments of wine for Jeroboam II - Uzziah's palace - The prophet Amos warns in vain - The walls of Samaria are strengthened to 30 feet.

So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day ... there was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only - I Kings 12:19,20

Solomon the Great died in 926 B.C. The dream of Israel as a great power was buried with him for ever. Under the leadership of two unusually gifted men - David and Solomon - this ambitious dream had been built up stone by stone for two generations. But at the very moment of Solomon's passing, the old tribal dissensions broke out again and the empire of Syria and Palestine was shattered as the inevitable end of the quarrel. Two kingdoms took its place - the kingdoin of Israel in the north, the kingdom of Judah in the south. A new chapter in the history of the people of the Bible had begun.

It was the Israelite people themselves that gnawed away their own foundations and destroyed their empire. It became only too plain what road they proposed to follow slowly until the bitter end when the inhabitants of Israel fell a prey to the Assyrians, and the inhabitants of Judah a prey to the Babylonians. Divided among themselves, what happened to them was worse than simply sinking back into obscurity. They were caught between the millstones of the great powers which were in the following centuries to dominate the world stage. Israel and Judah collapsed amid a welter of dispute and barely 340 year's after Solomon's death both kingdoms were no more.

Solomon's last wish was certainly carried out: his son Rehoboam sat on the throne at Jerusalem for a short spell as ruler of all the tribes. The endless quarrelling of the tribes among themselves hastened the end of the empire, since this resulted in civil war. Ten tribes in the north seceded. Jeroboam, who had lost no time in returning from exile in

p 228 -- Egypt, assumed the crown in 926 B.C. and became king of Israel in the north. The remainder stayed faithful to Rehoboam, and formed Judah in the south with its capital Jerusalem (I Kings 12:19, 20).

There was no harmony between Judah and Israel. They shed each other's blood in feud after feud. Time and again fighting broke out on the question of frontiers. "And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days" ( I Kings 14:30). It was no different under their successors. "And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days" (I Kings 15:16). Judah built the fortress of Mizpah on the main strategic route from Jerusalem to the north, farther to the east they strengthened Geba "... and king Asa built with them Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah" (I Kings 15:22). That was the final frontier.

FIG- 42.- Border stronghold of Mizpah between Judah and Israel. (Reconstruction.)

From 1927-35 an American expedition from the Pacific School of Religion, under the direction of William Frederick Bade, excavated abnormally massive stonework at Tell en-Nasbe, 7 miles north of Jerusalem. It was the remains of the old frontier fortress of Mizpah. The enclosing wall was 26 feet thick. This tremendous defensive wall shows how hard and bitter was the civil war that raged between north and south.

Israel was hemmed in on both sides: by Judah on the south, who even summoned the hated Philistines to help to keep Israel in check, and in the north by the kingdom of the Aramaeans, whose powerful aid had been secured by Judah through an alliance (I Kings 15:18ff ).

Centuries passed, centuries of endless conflict with this vastly superior power which was the deadly enemy. The continuous sequence of wars did not end until the new world power Assyria had crushed the Aramaeans. But with the emergence of Assyria Israel's days, indeed the days of both kingdoms, were numbered.

Over and above all this, just after the civil war had started the country suffered unexpectedly the first foreign invasion for generations.

p 229 -- Shishak  1  of Egypt attacked with his armies and marched through the country, plundering as he went. His greatest haul was from the old capital Jerusalem, "... and he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made" (I Kings 14:25, 26). The Temple and the House of Lebanon, as the Bible calls the royal palace, had hardly been standing twenty years, and already these proud tokens of Solomon's greatness were robbed of their glory. Instead of the golden shields which had been plundered "king Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields" (I Kings 14:27) It was an ill-omened act.

FIG. 43.- Victory relief of Pharaoh Sheshonk I (the "Shishak" of the Bible) in the Temple at Karnak.

The first European of note to stand in front of a large document of the Pharaoh whom the Bible calls Shishak was Napoleon Bonaparte. He was not aware of it however since at that time no one had as yet deciphered hieroglyphics. It was in 1799 that he wandered, deeply impressed, with a company of French scholars, through a vast Egyptian temple area at Karnak on the east side of Thebes. In the middle of this, the greatest temple area ever constructed by human hands, 134 columns up to 75 feet high support the roof of a colossal court. On the outer wall, on the south side, an imposing relief which perpetuates the marauding expedition of this Pharaoh stands out boldly in the bright sunshine of the Nile.

The god Amun, holding in his right hand a sickle-shaped sword, brings to Pharaoh Sheshonk I 156 manacled Palestinian prisoners who are attached by cords to his left hand. Every prisoner represents a city or a village. Some of them have Biblical names such as "the Father of Arad" (Josh. 1214; Jud. 1:16) and "the Field of Abraham". The fortified city of Megiddo is, among those represented, and in the ruins of Megiddo the name of Sheshonk I has been found.
1 -- Pharaoh Sheshonk I.

p 230 -- Sheshonk's campaign was for a long time the last. Not for more than 300 years was Egypt again in a position to enforce its ancient claim to the suzerainty of the Syrian-Palestine territories.

The deadly danger that faced Israel came from the north - Assyria. During the reign of King Omri (882-871 B.C.) Assyria prepared to pounce. As if in a practice manccuvre for the real thing it tried a thrust westwards from Mesopotamia.

"From Aleppo I launched the attack and crossed the Orontes." This sentence from a cuneiform inscription of Ashurnasirpal II rings out like an opening fanfare of trumpets. It had taken Assyria over 200 years to dispose of its enemies inside and outside Mesopotamia. From the ancient city of Ashur on the Tigris, which bore the name of their chief god, the Semitic race of Assyrians, eager for conquest and skilled in administration, had extended their dominion over all the peoples of Mesopotamia. Now their eyes were fixed on the conquest of the world. The prelude to that had to be the possession of the narrow coastal strip of Syria and Palestine which barred the way to the Mediterranean, as well as the occupation of the important seaports, the control of the chief caravan routes and of the only military road into Egypt.

When Assyria set itself this target the fate of Syria and Palestine was sealed.

The report of Ashurnasirpal indicates briefly what was also in store for Israel and Judah. "I marched from the Orontes ... I conquered the cities ... I caused great slaughter, I destroyed, I demolished, I burned. I took their warriors prisoner and impaled them on stakes before their cities. I settled Assyrians in their place.... I washed my weapons in the Great Sea."

As unexpectedly as the Assyrians had appeared, so with equal abruptness they departed, laden with "silver, gold, lead, copper", the tribute of the Phoenician cities of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos.

King Omri of Israel heard of all this with dark foreboding. This former army officer however still showed his outstanding flair for soldiering now that he had become king. In the heart of the Samarian highlands he bought a hill on which he built a new capital for Israel, the stronghold of Samaria (I Kings 16:24). He was certain that Israel would need it, and need it badly.

The choice of a site revealed the expert who was guided by strategic considerations. Samaria lies on a solitary hill, about 300 feet high, which rises gently out of a broad and fertile valley and is surrounded by a semi-circle of higher mountains. A local spring makes the place ideal for defence. The view westwards from the summit extends as far as the Mediterranean.

King Omri made an impression on the Assyrians. A century after his dynasty had crashed Israel was still officially called "The House of Omri" in cuneiform texts.

p 231 -- Eighteen years after Omri's death what they had dreaded actually happened. Shalmaneser III fell upon Carchemish on the Euphrates and was on his way to Palestine.  1

Ahab, Omri's son who succeeded him on the throne, guessed what a violent clash with the rising world-power of Assyria would mean and did the only proper thing in the circumstances. He had recently beaten his old enemy Benhadad of Damascus, king of the Aramaeans. Instead of letting him taste to the full the victor's power, he handled him with unwonted magnanimity, he "caused him to come up into the chariot", called him "my brother", made "a covenant with him and sent him away" (I Kings 20:33, 32, 34). So he made an ally out of an enemy. His people misunderstood his policy and one of the prophets took him to task. Only the future would show how well he had known what he was doing. War on two fronts had been avoided.

"In sheepskin boats I crossed the Euphrates in flood," runs the cuneiform report of Shalmaneser III, king of Assyria. His sappers knew how to make a pontoon bridge out of inflated animal skins.

In Syria he was met by an opposing coalition from Syria and Palestine, and he took careful note of how the army was made up. Apart from the troops of the Biblical Benhadad of Damascus and another Syrian prince, there were "2,000 chariots and 10,000 horses belonging to Ahabbu the Sirilaean". Ahabbu the Sirilaean, who provided the third strongest army, was king of Israel.

The alliance between Israel and Damascus did not last long. Hardly had the Assyrians left the country when the old enmities broke out again and Ahab lost his life fighting the Aramaeans (I Kings 22:34-38).

The Bible devotes six chapters to the life of this king. Much of it has been dismissed as legend, such as "the ivory house which he made" (I Kings 22:39), or his marriage to a Phoenician princess, who brought with her a strange religion, "... he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal and worshipped him ... and made the Asherah ..." (I Kings 16:31, 33 R.V.) or the great drought in the land, "And Elijah ... said unto Ahab: As the Lord, the God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word" (I Kings 17:1)

None the less they are historical facts.

Two great assaults have been made on the old ruined mound of Samaria. The first campaign was led by George A. Reisner, Clarence S. Fisher, and D. G. Lyon of the University of Harvard from 1908-10, the second excavation by an Anglo-American team under the British archaeologist J. W. Crowfoot from 1931-35.

The foundations of Israel's capital rest on virgin soil. Omri had in fact acquired new land.
1 -- 853 B.C.

p 232 -- During the six years when he reigned there this otherwise peaceful and lonely hill must have been one great bustling building site. The huge blocks of the strong fortifications make the strategic intention of the builder plain. The walls are 15 feet thick. On the acropolis on the west side of the hill foundations and walls of a building were exposed. This enclosed a wide courtyard and was the royal palace of the northern kingdom of Israel.

FIG. 44. --
I. "Cyclops" wall at Jericho (patriarchal age).
2. Wall of Saul's royal castle at Gibeah (1020 B.C.).
3. Wall of Solomon's "chariot city" of Megiddo (950 B.C.).
4. Wall ofKing Ahab's palace in Samaria (850 B.C.).

After Omri, Ahab his son, the new king, lived here. He continued building in accordance with his father's plans. The construction was carried out with remarkable skill, nothing but these huge carefully dressed limestone blocks, being used.

As the rubble was being carted off the diggers very quickly noticed the innumerable splinters of ivory that it contained. Finds of ivory itself are nothing unusual in Palestinian excavation. On almost every site this expensive material is encountered, but always - in isolated pieces, yet in Samaria the ground is literally covered with them. At every step, every square yard, they came across these yellowish brown chips and flakes, as well as fragments which still showed the marvellous craftsmanship of these elegant reliefs carved by Phoenician masters.

There was only one explanation of these finds: this palace was the famous "ivory house" of king Ahab (I Kings 22:39).

Obviously this monarch did not build his entire palace of ivory. Since this has however generally been assumed, the veracity of the Biblical passage has been questioned. It is now quite clear what happened: Ahab had the rooms of the palace decorated with this wonderful material and filled them with ivory furniture.

The proofs of the historical basis for the drought and for Ahab's father-in-law Ethbaal of Sidon were provided by Menander of Ephesus, a Phoenician historian. The Ethbaal of the Bible was called Ittobaal by the Phoenicians and in Ahab's day he was king of the port of Tyre.  1

1-- The Biblical historians often used the term Sidonian to mean Phoenicians generally.

p 233 -- Menander records the catastrophic drought which set in throughout Palestine and Syria during the reign of Ittobaal and lasted a whole year.

Under king Jehoram, Ahab's son, Israel suffered an invasion which had terrible consequences and resulted in a considerable loss of territory.

The Aramaeans attacked them and besieged Samaria. A frightful famine racked the inhabitants. Jehoram, who held the prophet Elisha responsible for it, wanted to have him put to death. Elisha however prophesied that the famine would end on the following day. As the Bible records, "a lord, on whose hand the king leaned" (2 Kings 7:2), doubted this prophecy.

This "lord" has given rise to great discussions. His function appeared to be extremely mysterious. Nothing was known of any office of this sort. Biblical commentators sought in vain for some explanation. Eventually philologists found a slight clue. The Hebrew word "shalish", which has been translated as "lord", comes from the word for "three". But there was never a third-class officer. When Assyrian reliefs were examined more closely the true explanation was found.

Every chariot was manned by three men: the driver, the fighter, and a man who stood behind them. With outstretched arms he held on to two short straps which were fastened to the right and left sides of the chariot. In this way he protected the warrior and the driver in the rear and prevented them from being thrown out during those furious sallies in battle when the open car passed over dead and wounded men. This then was the "third man". The inexplicable "lord, on whose hand the king leaned" was the strap-hanger in king Jehoram's chariot.

Under Jehoram Israel lost a large slice of territory east of theJordan. Moab in Transjordan was a tributary of Israel. There is a detailed account of a campaign against Mesha, the rebellious "Mutton-King": "And Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs, and a hundred thousand rams, with the wool. But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel" (2 Kings 3:4, 5). Israel summoned to her aid the southern kingdom, Judah, and the land of Edom.

They decided to make a joint attack on Moab from the south. This meant going round the Dead Sea. Relying on the prophecy: "Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain: yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cattle and your beasts" (2 Kings 3:17), the allies venture to march through that desolate country. "And they fetched a compass of seven days' journey: and there was no water for the host, and for the cattle that followed them." On the advice

p 234 -- of the prophet Elisha they made the valley "full of ditches". "And it came to pass in the morning ... behold there came water by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water." This was seen by spies from Moab, who "saw the water on the other side as red as blood" (2 Kings 3:9, 16, 20, 22) and thought that the enemy were fighting among themselves.

Fig. 45.- Map, the divided kingdom (850 B.C.) Kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of Judah.

The allied forces were successful in Moab, they laid waste the land, "they beat down the cities, and on every good piece of land cast every man his stone, and filled it: and they stopped all the wells of water, and felled all the good trees: only in Kir-Haraseth left they the stones thereof" (2 Kings 3:25).

Oddly enough the end of this successful campaign was "that they departed from him and returned to their own land" (2 Kings 3:27).

It seemed impossible to check up on the accuracy of this Biblical story.

In 1868, F. A. Klein, a missionary from Alsace, was visiting, Biblical sites in Palestine. The route he followed took him through Transjordan, through Edom and eventually to Moab. As he was riding in the neighbourhood of Diban, the ancient Dibon on the middle reaches of' the Arnon, his attention was particularly aroused by a large smooth stone. The yellow sand had almost completely drifted over it. Klein jumped from his horse and bent over the stone curiously. It bore unmistakably ancient Hebrew writing. He could hardly believe his eyes. It was as much as he could do in the heat of the mid-day sun to stand the heavy basalt stone upright. It was three feet high and rounded on top. Klein cleaned it carefully with a knife and a handkerchief. Thirty-four lines of writing appeared.

He would have preferred to take the stone document away with him

p 235 -- there and then, but it was far too heavy. Besides, in no time a mob of armed Arabs was on the spot. With wild gesticulations they surrounded the missionary, maintaining that the stone was their property and demanding from him a fantastic price for it.

Klein guessed that his discovery was an important one and was in despair. Missionaries never have much money. He tried in vain to make the natives change their minds. There was nothing for it but to mark the site carefully on his map. He then gave up the idea of continuing his journey, hurried back to Jerusalem and from there straight home to Germany to try to collect the necessary money for the Arabs.

But in the meantime other people got busy, which was a good thing. Otherwise an extremely valuable piece of evidence for Biblical history might well have been lost for ever.

A French scholar, Clermont-Ganneau, who was working in Jerusalem, had heard of the German missionary's discovery and had at once set out for Diban. It needed all his powers of persuasion to get the suspicious Arabs even to allow him to examine the writing on the basalt stone. Surrounded by the hostile eyes of the natives, Clermont-Ganneau took a squeeze of the surface. Months later, when Parisian scholars had translated the text, the French government sanctioned the purchase without hesitation. But judge the Frenchman's disappointment when he reached Diban, equipped with a caravan and the necessary sum of money, and found that the stone had disappeared. Only a patch of soot indicated the spot where it had been. The Arabs had blown it to pieces with gunpowder-from avarice. They hoped to do a more profitable trade with Europeans whose obsession with antiquity would make them willing to buy individual pieces.

What could Clermont-Ganneau do but set out on the trail of the individual pieces of the valuable document. After a great deal of trouble and searching, and after endless haggling, he was successful in retrieving some of the broken fragments. Two larger blocks and eighteen smaller pieces were reassembled and completed in accordance with the squeeze, and before Klein had even collected the necessary money, the impressive stone from Diban was standing among the valuable recent acquisitions in the Louvre in Paris.

This is what it says: "I am Mesha, son of Chamosh, king of Moab.... My father was king of Moab for thirty years and I became king after my father: and I built this sanctuary to Chamosh  1  in Qerihoh,  2  a sanctuary of refuge: for he saved me from all my oppressors and gave me dominion over all my enemies. Omri was king of Israel and oppressed Moab many days, for Chamosh was angry with his land. And his son succeeded him and he also said, I will oppress Moab. In my days he said
1 -- God of Moab, worshipped also in Jerusalem among other foreign deities in the time of Solomon.
2 -- The capital of Moab: the Kir-Haraseth of the Bible (2 Kings 3:25).

p 236 -- this: but I got the upper-hand of him and his house: and Israel perished for ever.... I have had the ditches of Qerihoh dug by Israelite prisoners...."

This Moabite victory message aroused considerable interest in learned circles. Many scholars did not conceal their suspicion that it was a forgery. International experts scrutinised the stone and its inscription. All the tests made it plain beyond doubt that this was in fact a historical document, a contemporary record of the King Mesha of Moab who is mentioned in the Bible.

It is also Palestine's oldest written document, dating from about 840 B.C. in Moabite dialect, which is closely related to Biblical Hebrew. That caused a real sensation.

Audiatur et altera pars - There are always two sides to a story!

If we want an objective picture it is always advisable to study the war-diaries of both opponents. There is more likelihood of getting a clearer picture of the real situation. In this particular case, as it happens, the Biblical description and the Moabite text supplement each other admirably. The Mesha-stele  1  adds the necessary colour to the Biblical narrative and illumines its obscurity. The stele and the Bible agree on the decisive point, namely that the campaign ended with the defeat of the Israelite king. The Bible describes at length the initial success of Israel, which king Mesha passes over in silence. The unfortunate outcome of the campaign is only briefly hinted at in the Bible, whereas the Moabite king revels in his victory. Both are telling the truth.

As far as the "bloody water" is concerned, which saved the allies from dying of thirst on their march through this barren country, a geologist found a natural explanation. If trenches are dug in the tufa beside the Dead Sea, they fill up with water at once, which seeps through from the high plateau and owes its reddish colour to the character of the soil. To this day shepherds. in Transjordan often manufacture water-holes in exactly the same manner.

"And Israel perished for ever," says the Mesha stele triumphantly. By this is meant the bloody extirpation of the dynasty of Omri from the throne of Israel. Jehoram was killed. Not one member was spared of the ruling house which had propagated the hated worship of Baal in Israel through king Ahab's marriage to the Phoenician princess Jezebel (2 Kings 9:24ff; 10:11ff).

Information about king Jehu's reign is scanty: "In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short: and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel" (2 Kings 10:32). The total extent of the losses in men and material first becomes plain in a passage about the reign of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu : 2  "Neither did he leave of the people to Jehoahaz but fifty

1 -- A "stele" in archaeology is an independent upright column or pillar, also tomb-stone.

2 -- 818-802 B.C.

p 237 -- horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen: for the king of Syria had destroyed them and had made them like the dust by threshing " (2 Kings 13:7). Ahab's proud chariot-corps was reduced from 2,000 to ten. How could that have happened?

A young Englishman, Henry Layard, a lawyer by profession and attaché-elect at Constantinople, had an incredible stroke of luck as a novice in archaeology in 1845. With literally only £50 in his pocket he had set out to excavate an old mound on the Tigris, Tell Nimrud. On the third day he came upon remains of a palace. He dug a trench, but nothing but masses and masses of sand came out of it. When the trench was 20 feet deep Layard had to stop work, to his great disappointment, as his money had run out.

He was feeling depressed as he loaded his few tools on to the packmules, when excited cries from the natives make him pause. One of them ran up to him and got him to go and look at the end of the trench where something dark was showing up against the golden yellow sand. Digging was hastily resumed and produced a huge pure black stone in the shape of an obelisk. Layard tenderly cleaned the ancient dust and dirt off his find. And now he could see reliefs, pictures and inscriptions in cuneiform writing on all four sides.

Well wrapped up and guarded like the apple of his eye the black stone sailed up the Tigris in one of the fragile river-boats to be presented to the more than somewhat astonished officials of the British Embassy in Constantinople. A meagre £50 had produced unexpected dividends indeed. Never again in the history of archaeology would such a valuable find result from such a small investment.

Proudly the technicians cleared a fitting site for the stone in the British Museum. Thousands of Londoners and European scholars marvelled at this ancient piece of evidence from the distant east. The tip of the 6 foot obelisk of black basalt is in the shape of a three-tiered temple tower. Visitors gazed in astonishment at the wonderful reliefs displayed in five rows round the column.

Magnificently attired royal personages are chiselled out as in real life: some of them prostrate themselves with their faces to the ground in front of a commanding figure. Long columns of bearers are laden with costly treasures, such as ivory tusks, bales of fringed fabrics borne on poles, pitchers and baskets full to the brim. Among the animals included can be observed an elephant with remarkably small ears: there are camels with two humps, apes, antelopes, even a wild bull and a mysterious unicorn.

Anyone trying to interpret the meaning of the reliefs was thrown back on pure conjecture. For at that time no one in the world could read cuneiform script. The stone remained dumb. Even the scholars learned no more about the Assyrians than the Bible told them. At the beginning of the 19th century even the names Sumerian and Akkadian meant

p 238 -- nothing. "One box, not more than three feet square," wrote Layard, "fitted with little inscribed cylinders, seals and textual fragments, which could not even be systematically arranged, were at that time all that London knew of the early period of Mesopotamian history."

It was only later, when the text had been translated, that it transpired that the black obelisk was a victory monument by the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III,  1  contemporary and adversary of king Ahab of Israel. It celebrates an endless succession of bloody campaigns.

The enumeration of them contains an extremely interesting cross-reference to the Biblical tradition dealing with the period.

FIG- 46.- -- Tribute of King Jehu to Shalmaneser III.

Three times, in the sixth, eleventh, and fourteenth year of his reign, the Assyrian came up against a coalition of kings of Syria and Palestine during his victorious incursions into the West. In the campaign in the eighteenth year of his reign however only one king opposed him in this territory. The Assyrian texts name as the adversary only king Hazael of Damascus, whom the Bible also mentions.

But the victory monument gives ample information about the former ally of the king of Damascus, Jehu of Israel.

The second row of the relief shows a long queue of heavily laden envoys in richly ornamented tunics and peaked caps. The relevant text reads: "Tribute of Jaua of Bit-Humri: Silver, gold, a golden bowl, golden goblets, a golden beaker, pitchers of gold, lead, sceptres for the king and balsam-wood I received from him."

"Jaua of Bit-Humri" is none other than King Jehu of Israel. The Assyrians called Israel "Bit-Humri", which means "House of Omri".

This hint from the royal palace on the Tigris provides the key to our understanding of the losses which the northern kingdom of Israel sustained during the reign of Jehu.

Tribute is only paid by those who voluntarily surrender: a van
1 -- 858-824 B.C.

p 239 -- quished enemy supplies loot. Jehu had been disloyal to Damascus and had brought gifts to the Assyrians. For his faithlessness towards his old ally, for deserting Damascus, Jehu and his son Jehoahaz and most of all the people of Israel had to pay a bitter price. Hardly had the Assyrians turned their backs on Syria than Hazael of Damascus began to make a destructive onslaught on Israel in revenge. The result of it is described in the Bible: "In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short: and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel ... and made them like the dust by threshing" (2 Kings 10:32).

"That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall: that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David; that drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the chief ointments (Amos 6:4-6).

The fact that Assyria had, after Shalmaneser III, a succession of weak kings, allowed both kingdoms, Israel and Judah, another respite, which, however meant only a postponement. Since Assyria was occupied with unrest in its own territory, Israel and Judah were able to enjoy a spell of peace from 825 to 745 B.C.

For forty years Uzziah, the leper, reigned as king of Judah. Israel was governed by Jeroboam II   1  Under his long rule Israel flourished again, became rich, wallowed in luxury, and the aristocracy lived for themselves and for the moment, effete, corrupt and vicious. The prophet Amos raised his voice in warning. He lashed out at their unbridled love of pleasure.

Archaeological reports and dry accounts of expeditions shed a powerful light upon these prophetic warnings. In Israel, in and around the old mound of ruins that represented ancient Samaria, evidence was lying dormant which would indicate this materialism and luxury in the soil strata from the decades following 800 B.C. in the reign of Jeroboam II. The royal palace of Samaria contained a considerable number of elegant clay tablets inscribed with ink and paint. On sixty-three of these invoices for wine and oil which had been delivered at the Court the senders are the managers of the crown lands of Jeroboam II, farmers and their employees, whose handwriting is extremely good.

From the same period comes a number of beautifully carved ivories, some of which are expensively embellished with gold and semi-precious stones and ornamented with colourful powdered glass. They show mythological motifs borrowed from Egypt, like Harpocrates on the lotus flower or figures of gods like Isis and Horus or cherubs. At that time all over Israel granaries and storehouses were being built to hold goods of all descriptions whose supply exceeded demand.

What was the reason for this sudden change? To what did they owe their new found riches?
1 -- 787-747 B.C.

p 240 -- A few decades previously things had looked black for Israel. A sentence from the record of the forty-one-year reign of Jjeroboam II contains the clue to the problem: "He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain" (2 Kings 14:25). The "sea of the plain" is the Dead Sea. Once again the kingdom stretched into Transjordan and - as in David's and Solomon's time - up to Syria.

FIG- 47.- Nobleman's house at Megiddo during the monarchy. (Reconstruction.)

About 800 B.C. the conquest of Damascus by the Assyrians had broken the power of the Aramaeans and thereby - it sounds as if fate were being ironical - cleared Israel's arch-enemy out of the way. Israel seized the opportunity to reconquer long-lost territory, exploited the situation to its own advantage and the tribute exacted from Transjordan proved a source of new wealth for Israel.

Evidence of a similar period of peace and prosperity in the southern kingdom of Judah has since come to hand. Professor Michael Evenari, vice-president of the Hebrew University, discovered in 1958 traces of several Judaean farms equipped with cisterns, irrigation systems, and fortifications, far south in the and Negev near Mizpeh Ramon. The finds date from the reign of Uzziah, king of Judah. We are specifically told in 2 Chron. 26:10 that this king "built towers in the desert and digged many wells; for he had much cattle.... "

In 1959 Professor Aharoni of the Hebrew University was the first to discover a Judaean palace two miles south of Jerusalem. On Rachel's hill on the road to Bethlehem, at the spot where, according to tradition, Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem "to be taxed" refreshed themselves at the spring, the site of a large castle was excavated, 250 feet by 150 feet square, and dating from the 8th century B.C. It had been surrounded by a casemated wall like that of King Ahab in Samaria and had a triple gate in the style of Solomon's day. Three sides of the courtyard were surrounded by buildings, two sides residential and the third for stores. When the excavators asked themselves the question as to who could have been the builder and first tenant of this lordly rural demesne they were given only one hint: "And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house being a leper; for he was cut off from the house of the Lord" (2 Chron. 26:21).

Individual items removed from the palace rubble indicate how right the prophets were in their condemnation. Several symbols of Astarte

p 241 -- witness to the "idolatry" that went on in this princely home (2 Kings 15:4)

Harsh and full of foreboding in these days of pseudo-prosperity ring out the prophetic words of Amos: "Woe ... to them, that trust in the mountain of Samaria... ye that put far away the evil day and cause the seat of violence to come near.... Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed" (Amos 6:1, 3, 7). But in vain - they fall upon deaf ears. Only king Jeroboam cannot have had much faith in the peace, perhaps because the words of the prophet found an echo in his heart. At all events he feverishly set about strengthening the defences of the royal city of Samaria, which were in any case sufficiently forbidding.

J. W. Crowfoot, the English archaeologist, found what Jeroboam in his wisdom and foresight had achieved. Samaria had been surrounded with a double wall and the existing walls which were already massive had been further strengthened. In the northern section of the acropolis, where Samaria must have been most vulnerable, Crowfoot exposed a titanesque bastion. He measured it and was certain he must have made a mistake. He measured it carefully once more. No doubt about it, the wall - solid stone through and through - was 30 feet thick.

p 242 -- Chapter 24 -- THE END OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM -- Pul the soldier becomes 'I"iglath-Pileser III - King Pekah mentioned at Hazor - Assyrian governors over Israel - Samaria's three-year defiance - Consul Botta looks for Nineveh - The bourgeois king opens the first Assyrian mseum - Searching for evidence by moonlight - The library of Ashurbanipal - Deportation of a people.

And Pul the king of Assyria came against the land -- 2 Kings 15:19.

Concise, sober and dispassionate, these words announce the end of the northern kingdom. The death of Jeroboam II introduced the last act. In the same year 747 B.C. the leprous king Uzziah of Judah also died. In the short intervening period during which anarchy reigned Menahem made himself king at Samaria. In 745 B.C. a former soldier by name Pulu had ascended the throne of Assyria, and from then on was known as Tiglath-Pileser III.  1  He was the first of a succession of brutal tyrants who conquered what was so far the greatest empire of the Ancient East. Their goal was Syria, Palestine, and the last cornerstone of the old world, Egypt. That meant that both Israel and Judah were caught between the pitiless millstones of a military state, for which the word peace had a contemptible sound, whose despots and cohorts had only three values: marching, conquering, oppressing.

From North Syria Tiglath-Pileser III swept through the Mediterranean countries, and forced independent peoples to become provinces and tributaries of the Assyrian Empire. Israel at first submitted voluntarily: "And Menahern gave Pul  2  1,000 talents of silver, that his hand might be with him, to confirm the kingdom in his hand. And Menahem exacted the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back, and stayed not there in the land" (2 Kings 15:19, 20). "1 received tribute from Menahern of Samaria," notes Tiglath-Pileser III in his annals.

One thousand talents correspond to 6 million gold sovereigns, 50 shekels per head from the "men of wealth" amounted to 100 gold sovereigns each. Economists and statisticians will gather that there must have been 60,000 well to do people in Israel.

King Menahem entertained the illusion that a pact with the tyrant
1 -- 745-727 B.C.
2 -- Tiglath- Pileser III.

p 243 -- and voluntary tribute would be the lesser of two evils. But the result was bad blood among his own people. Anger at the Assyrian taxes found an outlet in conspiracy and murder. Pekah, an army officer, murdered Menahem's son and heir and ascended the throne. From then on the anti-Assyrian party was the determining factor in the policy of the Northern Kingdom.

FIG. 48. -Tiglath-Pileser III (with bow and sword) besieging a fortress. Battering-rams pound the walls. Impaled victims in background.

Rezin, king of Damascus, powerfully grasped the initiative. Under his leadership the defensive league of the Aramaean states against Assyria came to life again. Phoenician and Arab states, Philistine cities and Edomites joined the alliance. Israel too took its place in the federation. Only king Ahaz of Judah remained obstinately outside. Rezin and Pekah tried to force Judah into the league violently. "Then Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to war: and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him" (2 Kings 16:5).

In dire straits the king of Judah sent out an S.O.S. "So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, saying, I am thy servant, and thy son: come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house, and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria" (2 Kings 16:7, 8).

"I received tribute from Jauhazi [Ahaz] of Judah," observes the Assyrian once more.

p 244 -- Now events took their disastrous course. For our knowledge of further developments we are indebted to two great historical records. Firstly, the Bible and secondly the cuneiform tablets of stone and clay, on which - over 600 miles from where the terrible events took place - the military developments were officially recorded. For more than two and a half millennia these documents lay in the magnificent palaces on the Tigris until scholars ran them to earth and translated them into our tongue. They make it plain once more in quite a unique way how true to history are the contents of these Biblical stories.

The Bible and the Assyrian monuments are in entire agreement in their description of these events which were fatal for the Northern Kingdom. The Old Testament historian notes down the facts soberly, the Assyrian chronicler records every brutal detail:

Second Book of Kings Cuneiform Text of Tiglath-Pileser III
"The king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it captive
to Kir, and slew Rezin" (2 Kings 16:9).
"His noblemen I impaled alive and displayed this exhibition to his land. All his gardens and fruit orchards I destroyed. I besieged and captured the native city of Reson (Rezin) of Damascus. 800 people with their belongings I led away. Towns in 16 districts of Damascus I laid waste like mounds after the Flood." (From: Western Campaign 734-733 B.C.)
"In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria and took ... Hazor and Gilead and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria" (2 Kings 15:29). "Bet-Omri (Israel) all of whose cities I had added to my territories on my former campaigns, and had left out only the city of Samaria.... The whole of Naphtali I took for Assyria. I put my officials over them as governors. The land of Bet-Omri, all its people and their possessions I took away to
Assyria." (From: Western Campaign and Gaza/Damascus campaign 734-733 B.C.)
p 245 -- "And Hoshea ... made a conspiracy against Pekah ... and slew him and reigned in his stead" (2 Kings 15:30). "They overthrew Pekah their king and I made Hoshea to be king over them." (From: Gaza/Damascus campaign.)

Sombre evidence of the capture of Hazor by Tiglath-Pileser III, king of Assyria (2 Kings 15:29), has been supplied by a layer of rubble at Tell el-Qedah in Israel. In the course of more recent excavations by archaeologists from the Hebrew University, traces came to light of the shattered Israelite fortress which had been rebuilt during the monarchy for defence purposes by Solomon and Ahab on the site of the old Canaanite fort which had been conquered by Joshua. The strength of the keep with its six-foot thick walls was such that it was only surpassed by the famous royal palace at Samaria, now likewise rediscovered.

The apartments in the castle at Hazor were covered by a layer of ashes three feet thick, the stones were blackened with smoke, charred beams and fragments of what had been at one time panelled ceilings lay scattered about the ground. By exercising the utmost care the archaeologists were able to salvage from the piles of rubble some precious examples of the arts and crafts of northern Israel: a statuette of a well-groomed young woman and a marble incense-spoon. The greatest thrill was to find among the fragments of broken pottery the name of king Pekah himself, written in old Semitic script. This was the first written evidence of an Israelite king in Galilee.

When the armed hordes of Assyrians withdrew from Palestine they left Israel mortally wounded, smashed to the ground, decimated by deportation, beaten back into a tiny corner of the northern kingdom. With the exception of Samaria all its cities had been annexed and the country had been divided into provinces over which Assyrian governors and officials exercised strict control.

All that was left of Israel was a dwarf state, a tiny pinpoint on the map: the mountain of Ephraim with the royal city of Samaria. There lived king Hoshea.

The southern kingdom of Judah still remained free from foreign domination - for the time being. But it had to pay tribute to TiglathPileser III.

The warlike Assyrian colossus had enclosed in his mighty grip the whole of the "Fertile Crescent" from the shores of the Persian Gulf, from the mountains of Persia to Asia Minor, from the Mesopotamian plain through Lebanon and Antilebanon as far as Palestine. Alone, away to the south-west, the 20 acre royal city of Samaria with its few square miles of hinterland, providing it with corn and barley, was unsubdued.

From this corner a gauntlet of defiance flew through the air to land at Assyria's feet.

p 246 -- After the death of Tiglath-Pileser III Hoshea conspired with Egypt. He refused to pay his annual tribute to Assyria. Shalmaneser V  1   the successor of Tiglath-Pileser III at once struck back. For when he "found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So  2   king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison" (2 Kings 17:4) Part of the organisation of the hated reign of terror - even in those days - was a widespread net of informers and spies.

With the fall of Samaria the last remnant of the Northern Kingdom of Israel suffered the fate of Damascus, "... in the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away into Assyria" (2 Kings 17:6).

For three years the little mountain fortress withstood the deadly pressure of superior forces with the courage of a lion (2 Kings 17:5).

Cuneiform texts record that Shalmaneser V died unexpectedly during the siege of Samaria. His successor Sargon II  3   nevertheless continued the attack. "In the first year of my reign," boasts Sargon in his annals, "I besieged and conquered Samaria.... I led away into captivity 27,290 people who lived there."

The discovery of the Sargon inscriptions over 100 years ago is like a romantic tale from the fabulous land of the caliphs. None the less it is a milestone in our knowledge of the ancient world. For it marked the birth of Assyriology, which by its sensational discoveries has for the first time given many Biblical narratives a genuine historical content.

The motor car had not been invented: electric light was still unknown: no steel frames of derricks towered out of the sandflats by the Tigris: Mosul still wore the colourful variegated garb of a city from the Arabian Nights. Bazaars, harems, and a real live caliph were all there. It was the heart of the ancient orient and the year was 1840.

Summer lay like a red-hot breath over the city with its elegant white minarets and its narrow dirty muddy alleyways.

For a European the heat was enervating and unbearable. Paul Emile Botta, the new French consular agent, escaped from the incubator as often as he could to take a ride by the Tigris and breathe fresher air. But soon certain desolate mounds on the other side of the river began to fascinate him more. Admittedly they had nothing to do with the routine duties of a consular agent, but M. Botta was a scholar. He had been carefully following an academic dispute which had broken out over the Biblical name Nineveh. No one could say with any certainty where this city lay in olden times. It was a case of one surmise being as good as another. One suggestion pointed in the direction of Mosul. In the course of his wanderings among the yellow brown sandhills on the far
1 -- 727-722 B.C
2 -- So= Sewe, ruler of Egypt, called Sib'e by the Assyrians.
3 -- 721-705 B.C.

p 247 -- side of the river Botta had repeatedly noticed fragments of bricks. They, were only plain looking uncommunicative fragments. Nevertheless he mentioned them in a letter to Paris. In reply came a letter from M. Mohl, secretary of the Societe Asiatique. It encouraged him to examine the terrain a little more closely.

Botta hired a bunch of natives out of his own pocket. In the typical round Tigris-boats they headed up river towards the mounds and prepared to excavate.

This first attempt of a modern European to come to grips with ancient Nineveh and wrest its secrets from it, failed to achieve the desired result. Botta ordered digging to begin on several slopes. Some weeks flashed past as the work went busily on. But the result was precisely nothing. Botta saw his money being expended to no purpose and brought his private expedition which had been started with such enthusiasm to a disappointing end.

Perhaps he might have kept his hands off any further researches in this area except that he heard something which spurred him to new activity. In the village of Khorsabad, 7 miles to the north, Arabs working in the fields were said to have found great pillars.

In the early part,of March 1842 Botta and his workers were on the spot. They began to excavate, and on the same day they struck stonework, apparently the inner wall of a large building.

Botta was highly delighted although at that moment he had no idea that he was responsible for a historic event of the greatest importance for scholarship. The stonework was part of the first of the gigantic Assyrian palaces which after lying dormant for thousands of years were now to come to light. It was the birth of Assyriology. And the first thing that this new science got itself involved in was-as we shall see in a moment-an erroneous idea.

Once again French scholarship displayed in this case sound judgement. The Academie des Inscriptions, which Botta informed at once, saw to it that the government placed funds at his disposal. It was to begin with no vast amount of money but gold francs were still worth something in the East. The sultan gave the required permission for excavation.

But on the site itself Botta had to endure unimaginable difficulties due to the extremely underhand dealings of the local authorities in Mosul. At one moment the trenches came under suspicion as being military defences; at another the primitive shelters of the members of the excavations were suspected of being army bivouacs. It seemed that by every possible means the great excavation was to be thwarted. More than once Botta had to send an S.O.S. to Paris and invoke the aid of the French diplomatic service.

Despite all this, sections of a huge palace were liberated from the sand at Khorsabad.

p 248 -- Eugene N. Flandin, a well-known Paris artist, who had specialised in antiquities, had been given the assignment by the Louvre which nowadays falls on the official photographer of any expedition. His pencil reproduced accurately on paper all that the ground yielded up. The drawings were collected into a handsome folio and the large volume was adorned with the proud title "Le Monument de Ninive". For Botta was convinced that he had found the Biblical city of Nineveh at Khorsabad. And that was where he was wrong.

If he had only dug a few inches deeper into the mounds opposite Mosul, where two years earlier he had given up the apparently hopeless task in disgust, he would in fact have made the discovery of his life. As it happened the credit for discovering Nineveh went to Henry Layard, who at the instigation of the British Government commenced digging in 1845 at the very spot where Botta had given up.

At the first spadeful, so to speak, he came upon the walls of one of the great palaces of Nineveh.

FIG. 49.- Ruins of the royal homes of Assyrian monarchs on the Tigris.

What Botta had excavated at Khorsabad was the great castle of Sargon, the home of Sargon II, king of Assyria. But that did not emerge until later. If Botta had been able to read the tablets which were salvaged at Khorsabad he would never have made his mistake. "Dur-Sharrukin", Castle of Sargon, was written there in cuneiform, which at that time, 1842, had not yet been completely deciphered. The key to its translation was not agreed on until fifteen years later.

In 1857 Rawlinson and Hincks in England and Oppert in France independently of each other produced translations of a piece of text which corresponded exactly. With that the correct interpretation of Assyrian script was assured.

In October 1844 the tablets salvaged by Botta containing reliefs and historical texts, as well as statues and sections of pillars started out on an adventurous journey. From Khorsabad the precious cargo rocked its way down the Tigris on skiffs and rafts. At Basra on the Persian Gulf the valuable freight was transferred to the "Cormoran", which conveyed it to Europe. It made a great sensation in Paris and evoked as lively an interest among the general public as among the scholars.

On 1st May 1847 in the splendid galleries of the Louvre designed by Percier and Fontaine, Louis Philippe, the bourgeois king, handed over to the public with impressive ceremony this collection, which contained

p 249 -- the earliest evidence from the realm of Biblical story. With that the first Assyrian museum in the world had been founded.

The mounds of old Nineveh provided the new world with its most extensive collection of information about ancient times.

The story of the discovery of this left a bitter taste in French mouths. When the British began their diggings, the French had also staked a claim on a section of the mounds.

In the British excavation area a vast palace had come to light which had been identified as the historic Nineveh of the Bible. But what might still be lying hidden over there in the French sector? Rassam, one of the members of the British party, decided to take time by the forelock. He took advantage of the absence of his chief, Rawlinson, leader of the expedition, and of the presence of a full moon to make a purposeful excursion into the French reservation. At the first stroke he came upon the palace of Ashurbanipal with the famous library belonging to that monarch, which was indeed the most famous in the whole of the ancient orient. Twenty-two thousand cuneiform tablets found their way into the British Museum.

They contained the essential material for understanding the historical and intellectual background of Mesopotamia, its peoples, its kingdoms with their arts and crafts, cultures and religions. Among them were the Sumerian flood story and the epic of Gilgamesh.

What had been until then a mysterious sealed chapter of our world's history was suddenly opened and page after page was turned over. Rulers, cities, wars and stories which people had only heard about through the Old Testament revealed themselves as real facts.

We must include among these the city of Erech which is described in the tenth chapter of Genesis as part of the kingdom of Nimrod, the "mighty hunter before the Lord". About fifty miles to the north-west of Ur of the Chaldees, Professor H. J. Lenzen was the director of excavations which from 1928 onwards provided valuable information. From a pile of ruins, which the Arabs call Warka, he would produce impressive evidence of the ancient city of Uruk, as Erech is styled in the cuneiform texts, including written tablets which go back to the fourth and third millennium B.C. In the course of his investigations the German archaeologist came across the remains of walls which could be credited to the legendary king Gilgamesh. Over five miles in length they afforded their protection to this ancient Biblical city.

Meantime the original starting point of all these exciting investigations and discoveries had long been forgotten. But if it had not been for the Bible perhaps the quest would never have begun.

About the middle of last century, Nineveh, Sargon's castle, and, at Tell Nimrud, the Calah of Genesis which Nimrod built (Gen. 10:11) were all discovered. But it was several decades before the enormous quantity of cuneiform texts was deciphered, translated, and made

p 250 -- available to a wider circle. It was not until the turn of the century that several comprehensive scholarly works appeared, containing translations of some of the texts, including the annals of Assyrian rulers well known to readers of the Old Testament, Tiglath-Pileser or Pul, Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon.

Since then they have become essential features of all national libraries, as well as of universities and colleges. A unique mine of information eagerly studied and used by historians, Assyriologists and theological students - all of them people with a professional interest. But who else reads them or knows about them? Yet they could easily, even taking the reliefs alone, provide a large clear illustrated commentary on the Bible.

The Assyrian documents contain a wealth of interesting and informative details which corroborate the historical truth of the Bible.

Botta found in Sargon's castle at Khorsabad his reports on his campaigns in Syria and Palestine, and his capture of Samaria in Israel.

"... in the first year of my reign I besieged and conquered Samaria." Sargon II reigned from 721 to 705 B.C. According to that the northern kingdom of Israel collapsed in 721 B.C. (2 Kings 17:6).

"People of the, lands, prisoners my hand had captured, I settled there. My officials I placed over them as governors. I imposed tribute and tax upon them, as upon the Assyrians." So reads the account of the conquest of Samaria in the annals. The Old Testament describes the uprooting tactics employed in this case too by ruthless dictators, the first large scale experiment of its kind in the world made by the Assyrians: "And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria, instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof" (2 Kings 17:24).

Tens of thousands of human beings were violently driven from their homeland, deported to foreign lands, and their places filled by others dragged from different areas.

The aim of this was clear: national consciousness, and with it the will to resist, was to be broken. The "Fertile Crescent" was ploughed up, its peoples tossed about hither and thither. Instead of a varied range of races and religions existing side by side the result was a jumble.

Samaria shared this fate. Its motley collection of inhabitants became known as "Samaritans". "Samaritans" became a term of abuse, an expression of abhorrence. They were despised not only on religious grounds but also as individuals: "For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans" (John 4:9). It was only when Jesus told the story of the

p 25 1-- "Good Samaritan" that he turned this term of abuse into a byword for practical Christian charity (Luke 10:3ff).

The people of the Northern Kingdom and their kings with them disappeared, were absorbed into the population of these foreign lands, ahd never emerged again in history. All investigation into what became of the ten tribes who had their home there has so far come to nothing.

p 252 -- Chapter 25 -- JUDAH UNDER THE YOKE OF ASSYRIA -- Hopes aroused by Sargon's dtath - A fig poultice cures king
Hezekiah - A well-tried Ancient Eastern remedy - Merodach-Baladan: gardner and rebel - Secret armaments in Judah - Aqueduct through the rocks of Jerusalem - Inscription describes Hezekiah's tunnel - The fate of Lachish in stone relief - Traces of Assyrian battering-rams in the ruins - A puzzling retreat - Herodotus' story of the king with the mouse - Starkey finds a plague-grave - Sennacherib describes the siege of Jerusalem.

Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls. For her (i.e. Samaria's) wound is incurable: for it is come unto Judah: he is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem -- Micah 1:8-9.

In Judah there may have been some who rejoiced at the downfall of their hostile brother. The prophet Micah however was overwhelmed with grief and filled with deep anxiety at the news. He guessed that the blow that had crushed Samaria would one day strike the people of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. At that time Hezekiah was king of Judah,   1  "and he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord" (2 Kings 18:3). Since the father of Hezekiah had voluntarily submitted to Tiglath-Pileser III in 733 B.C., Judah had been a dependent vassal-state, whose deliveries of tributes were carefully noted in Nineveh. Hezekiah was not prepared to follow in his father's footsteps. The reaction set in when he came to the throne. "He rebelled against the king of Assyria" (2 Kings 18:7).

Hezekiah was no hothead, but a clever, cool, calculating and farsighted man. He knew very well that what he was about was a highly dangerous and risky business for himself and his people. Only 30 miles from Jerusalem the Assyrian governor of Samaria was sitting eyeing him with suspicion. One careless step, a nod to Nineveh, and Hezekiah would find himself off his throne and clapped in irons. He merely held the throne in fee. Hezekiah proceeded with the utmost caution, "and he prospered, whithersoever he went forth" (2 Kings i 8:7).

In the Philistine city-state of Ashdod, which was oppressed in the
1 -- 725-697 B.C.

p 253 -- same way, anti-Assyrian riots broke out. That brought into being a league against the tyrant on the Tigris.  1   Hezekiah saw a chance to further his plan. He showed his sympathy but remained officially aloof, and intrigued behind the scenes.

Jerusalem had at this time visitors from overseas, tall personages from "beyond the rivers of Ethiopia" (Is. 18:1). These were Ethiopian envoys. The king of Egypt at that point was Shabaka, a Pharaoh from Ethiopia. The Assyrians replied to the riots in Ashdod with armed force. A "turtanu", a field-marshal, appeared on the scene with an army. "In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod [when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him] and fought against Ashdod and took it. ..." (Is. 20:1).

On the walls of Sargon's castle the court chroniclers describe the carrying out of this punitive expedition as follows: "Ashdod ... I besieged and conquered ... its gods, its women, its sons, its daughters, its goods and chattels, the treasures of its palace, and all the people of its territory I counted as plunder. I settled those cities anew ......

The anti-Assyrian league had gone to pieces on the approach of the Assyrians. Ashdod's territory became an Assyrian province.

Nothing happened. to Hezekiah, although his name was on the black list. Assyrian informers had seen through his game and had given Sargon II full details of Hezekiah's secret dealings with Egypt, as can be seen from the text of a fragment of a prism:

"Philistia, Judah, Edom and Moab, who planned hostilities, infamies without number ... who, in order to prejudice him against me and make him my enemy, brought gifts in homage to Pharaoh, king of the land of Egypt ... and begged him to form an alliance...."

In 705 B.c. news spread like wildfire, raising at once fresh hopes of liberation from the Assyrian yoke: Sargon had been murdered! All over the "Fertile Crescent", in the Assyrian provinces and in the vassal states, conspiracies, discussions and intrigues began.
1 -- 713.B.C.

p 254 -- "In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death" (2 Kings 20:1).

Happening precisely at this moment of feverish political activity it was a grave handicap. For many states in Syria and Palestine were looking expectantly to the able king of Judah.

How could Hezekiah be cured of his serious illness? "And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs, And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered" (2 Kings 20:7).

The course of history is often rich in remarkable parallels and associations. So it is in the case of this Biblical therapy.

FIG. 51 - King Sargon II of Assyria with his Tartan (releif from Khorsabad).

In the north Syrian harbour of Ras Shamra, French excavators in 1939, digging among the ruins of the Phoenician seaport of Ugarit, came upon fragments of an old book of veterinary science, which contained prescriptions for the treatment of sick and ailing horses. The captain of the household cavalry of the king of Ugarit had, about 1500 B.C., entered in it tried remedies of this sort: "If a horse has a swollen head or a sore nose, prepare a salve from figs and raisins, mixed with oatmeal and liquid. The mixture should be, poured into the horse's nostrils."

For every kind of sickness there is a very detailed prescription. The chief medicaments are plants and fruit, like mustard and liquorice juice. Advice is even given on how to deal with horses that bite and neigh too much. Does any modern breeder or owner of horses know how to cure that? In those days a neighing horse could in certain circumstances be fatal. Horses were used exclusively for fighting and hunting. A troop of chariots, however well hidden in an ambush, could be betrayed by a sudden loud neighing. It was the same with hunting.

These recognised cures have been tried out successfully from time immemorial by the peoples of the ancient orient. They are nature's remedies which can also be profitably used in the case of human beings. One of them, which is particularly commended in the veterinary manual, is "Debelah", a sort of poultice of compressed figs. It was a "Debelah" that the prophet prescribed for Hezekiah's abscess. It worked, and he was all right again in three days.

Many of these tried remedies dating back to Biblical times, and largely consisting of ingredients supplied by Mother Nature, have been either lost or forgotten in the whirligig of time. Many of them on the other hand have been quietly passed on from generation to genera-

p 255 -- tion. This prescription for figs is one of them. Swiss doctors still prescribe finely chopped up figs steamed in milk, for certain kinds of abscesses. An Arabic remedy reminds us of the "Debelah". A thick sticky liquid made from grape-juice is called "Dibis" in the native tongue.

"At that time Berodach-Baladan,  1  the son of Baladan king of Babylon, sent letters and a present unto Hezekiah: for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick" (2 Kings 20:12).

This was the traditional practice in court circles and was part of the royal etiquette in the ancient East. Presents were sent and enquiries made about the health of "our brother". The clay tablets of El-Amarna mention the habit frequently.

Merodach-Baladan   however found Hezekiah's illness a convenient pretext for making contact with him. The real reason for his polite courtesies lay in the field of high level politics.

"Merodach-Baladan, king of Babylon", was for a long time a mysterious personage both to readers of the Bible and to scholars. It is now quite certain that he was in his own day an extremely important person. We even know something about his private habits. He was for example a great gardener, not in the sense of being keen to lay out handsome royal parks, but with a real down to earth interest in the vegetables and fruit of Mesopotamia, whether it was endives, beetroot, cucumbers, thyme, coriander, saffron, peaches or medlars. He described the various types of plants and how to cultivate them, and was in fact the author of a practical handbook on vegetable gardens, as archaeologists discovered with no little astonishment.

Apart from his private hobby of gardening, Merodach-Baladan both as a king and as a Babylonian was the most bitter and determined opponent of Nineveh. No other monarch in the "Fertile Crescent" attacked the Assyrians so vigorously over many years, engaged them in so many heated battles, or intrigued so unremittingly against the tyrants of the Tigris, as he did.

The assassination of Sargon brought Merodach-Baladan into the field. It was at this point that his ambassadors visited Hezekiah. What was in fact discussed on the occasion of the official visit during the convalescence of Hezekiah, can be read between the lines: "And Hezekiah hearkened unto them, and showed them all the house of his precious things ... and all the house of his armour" (2 Kings 20:13), Judah's arsenal. Secret armaments and feverish preparations for D-day, the great show-down with Assyria which they saw to be imminent, were in full swing. "Also ... he built up all the wall that was
1 --Here wrongly spelt Berodach-Baladan. Isaiah (39:1) spells it correctly Merodach-Baladan.
2 -- = Marduk-Aplaiddin in Babylonian.

p 256 -- broken, and raised it up to the towers, and another wall without, and repaired Millo in the city of David, and made darts and shields in abundance" (2 Chron- 32:5).

Jerusalem's defences were overhauled and strengthened for a long siege, the old perimeter wall was renewed, breaches repaired, and turrets erected. On the north side of the city, its most vulnerable point, a second outer wall was added. Hezekiah even pulled down houses to make room for it (Isa. 22:10). But that did not exhaust his precautions. "And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah?" (2 Kings 20:20).

The Chronicler completes the story: "This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper water course of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David...." (2 Chron- 32:30).

Jerusalem, the old city of David, has many mysterious corners. Pilgrims from all over the world, travellers of three faiths, Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, come to pay homage at its holy places. Seldom does one of these endless visitors stumble upon the dark depressing spot outside, the walls, far below the noisy streets of the city, which bears eloquent testimony to one of the most dire moments in its ancient story, to a time fraught with fear and menace. This spot had sunk into oblivion. In 1880 it was discovered by a fluke. It still bears as plain as day all the marks of feverish haste.

Outside the city, where its southeastern slopes sweep gently down to the Valley of the Kidron, lies a small still sheet of water, enclosed by walls, the Pool of Siloam. Two Arab boys were playing there - one of them fell in. Paddling for all he was worth, he landed on the other side, where a rock wall rose above the pool. Suddenly it was pitch black all round him. He groped about anxiously and discovered a small passage.

FIG. 52 - King Hezekiah's great Tunnel of Siloam in Jerusalem.

The name of the Arab boy was forgotten but not his story. It was followed up and a long underground tunnel was discovered.

A narrow passage about 2 feet wide and barely 5 feet high had been cut through the limestone. It can only be negotiated with rubber boots and a slight stoop. For about 500 yards the passage winds imperceptibly uphill. It ends at the Virgin's Fountain, Jerusalem's water supply

p 257 -- since ancient times. In Biblical days it was called the Fountain of Gihon.

As experts were examining the passage they noticed by the light of their torches old Hebrew letters on the wall.

The inscription, which was scratched on the rock only a few paces from the entrance at the Pool of Siloam, reads as follows: "The boring through is completed. And this is the story of the boring: while yet they plied the pick, each toward his fellow, and while yet there were three cubits to be bored through, there was heard the voice of one calling to the other that there was a hole in the rock on the right hand and on the left hand. And on the day of the boring through the workers in the tunnel struck each to meet his fellow, pick upon pick. Then the water poured from the source to the pool twelve hundred cubits, and a hundred cubits was the height of the rock above the heads of the workers in the tunnel."

FIG. 53.- "The boring through is completed. And this is the story of the boring: while yet... (Beginning of the Siloam inscription.)

The Turkish government had the inscription prized out before the First World War. It is now exhibited in the museum at Istanbul.

It was Hezekiah's aqueduct.

During a siege the Number One problem is that of providing drinking water. The founders of Jerusalem, the Jebusites, had sunk a shaft down through the rock to the Fountain of Gihon. Hezekiah directed its water, which would otherwise have flowed into the Kidron valley, through the mountain to the west side of the city. The Pool of Siloam lies inside the second perimeter wall which he constructed.

There was no time to lose. Assyrian troops could be at the gates of Jerusalem overnight. The workmen therefore tackled the tunnel from both ends. The marks of the pickaxes point towards each other, as the inscription describes.

Oddly enough the canal takes an S-shaped course through the rock. Why did the workmen not dig this underground tunnel the shortest way to meet each other, that is, in a straight line? The wretched job would have been finished quicker. Seven hundred feet of hard work would have been saved out of the total 1,700 feet.

Locally, there is an old story which has been handed down which claims to explain why they had to go the long way round. Deep in the rock, between the spring and the pool, are supposed to lie the graves of David and Solomon.

Archaeologists took this remarkable piece of folk-lore seriously and systematically tapped the walls of the narrow damp tunnel. They sank

p 258 -- shafts into the rock from the summit and R. Weill actually came across cavities cut in the rock, which were perhaps graves, but which had obviously been despoiled in early times. Were these perhaps the graves of David's line? Kathleen M. Kenyon, one of the most prominent Biblical archaeologists of recent years, does not think so. Others, however, are of a different opinion. We shall probably never know what these "royal graves" really were....

"Now in the fourteenth  1   year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them" (2 Kings 18:13).

The states of Syria and Palestine had four years left in which to take defensive measures. The Assyrian governors were expelled. A strong league was formed. The kings of Askelon and Ekron joined up with Hezekiah, and Egypt promised help in case of military developments.

Naturally the new Assyrian ruler Sennacherib  2   was not unaware of all this. But his hands were tied. After the assassination of his predecessor Sargon, the eastern part of his empire revolted. The leading spirit in this was Merodach-Baladan. As soon as Sennacherib was once more in control of the situation in Mesopotamia, by the end of the year 702 B.C., he set out for the west and smashed the rebellious little countries in one single campaign. A similar fate overtook the Egyptian army which pharaoh Shabaka had sent under the command of his nephew Taharka against the Assyrians. The Second Book of Kings and the Book of Isaiah confer upon the latter, a future pharaoh, who was also related to the Ethiopian dynasty, distinction which was still to come, in that they described him even in those troubled times as "Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia" (2 Kings 19:9; Isa. 37:9). The whole of Judah was occupied by Sennacherib's troops, Hezekiah was shut up in Jerusalem. Among the frontier fortresses Lachish alone still offered resistance. Sennacherib deployed his storm-troopers against this unusually strong fortified city.

Anyone who wishes to re-live the frightful battle of Lachish, vividly and dramatically to the smallest detail, must pay a visit to the British Museum. It is here that the massive relief, which eye-witnesses created on the orders of Sennacherib 2,650 years ago, have found a resting place. Sir Henry Layard salvaged this precious object from the ruins of Nineveh.

On the turrets and breastwork of the stronghold of Lachish with its stout high walls the Judahite defenders fought with clenched teeth. They showered a hail of arrows on the attackers, hurled stones down upon them, threw burning torches - the fire-bombs of the ancient world - among the enemy. The faces, curly hair, and short beards are easily recognisable. Only a few wear any protection for head or body.
1 -- Biblical chronology is out here by ten years. It was the twenty-fourth year.
2 -- 705-681 B.C.

p 259 -- FIG- 54.- Assyrians storming Lachish 701 B.C.

At the foot of the wall the Assyrians are attacking with the utmost violence and with every type of weapon. Sennacherib had deployed the whole range of approved assault-tactics. Every Assyrian is armed to the teeth: each one wears shield and helmet. Their engineers have built sloping ramps of earth, stones and felled trees. Siege-engines, the first tanks in history, push forward up the ramps against the walls. They are equipped in front with a battering ram which sticks out like the barrel of a cannon. The crew consists of three men. The archer shoots his arrows from behind a sheltering canopy. A warrior guides the ram, and under its violent blows stones and bricks crash down from the walls. The third man douses the tanks with ladlefuls of water, extinguishing the smouldering fire-bombs. Several tanks are attacking at the same time. Tunnels are being driven into the rock beneath the foundations of the walls. Behind the tanks come the infantry, bowmen, some of them kneeling, some stooping, protected by a shield-bearer. The first captives, men and women, are being led off. Lifeless bodies are hanging on pointed stakes - impaled.

James Lesley Starkey, a British archaeologist, dug up the ruins of the walls of the fortress of Lachish. The holes and breaches made by the Assyrian tanks can be seen to this day.

Amid the confusion of the battle and the din of the siege around the

p.260 -- frontier fortress of Judah an order went out from Sennacherib: "And the king of Assyria sent Tartan, and Rabsaris and Rab-Shakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem" (2 Kings 18:17).

That meant attack on Jerusalem.

The historians of the Assyrian king have preserved a record of what happened next. A hexagonal prism from the rubble heaps of Nineveh says: "And Hezekiah of Judah who had not submitted to my yoke ... him I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city like a caged bird. Earthworks I threw up against him, and anyone coming out of his city gate I made to pay for his crime. His cities which I had plundered I cut off from his land. ...

Surely now must come the announcement of the fall of Jerusalem and the seizing of the capital. But the text continues: "As for Hezekiah, the splendour of my majesty overwhelmed him ... 30 gold talents ... valuable treasures as well as his daughters, the women of his harem, singers both men and women, he caused to be brought after me to Nineveh. To pay his tribute and to do me homage he sent his envoys."

It is simply a bragging account of the payment of tribute - nothing more.

"And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold" (2 Kings 18:14').

The Assyrian texts pass on immediately from the description of the battle of Jerusalem to the payment of Hezekiah's tribute. Just at the moment when the whole country had been subjugated and the siege of Jerusalem, the last point of resistance, was in full swing, the unexpected happened: Sennacherib broke off the attack at five minutes to twelve. Only something quite extraordinary could have induced him to stop the fighting. What might it have been?

Whilst the Assyrian records are enveloped in a veil of silence, the Bible says: "And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh" (2 Kings 19:35, 36).

Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the most famous traveller in the ancient world, historian and author of an early Baedeker, helped to solve the puzzle. This friend of Pericles and Sophocles, who was born about 500 B.C., had a definite flair for finding out strange facts about people and nations. Like a personified questionnaire he extracted from his contemporaries on his travels through the Ancient East information on all sorts of things which he thought were worth knowing or were unknown

p.261 -- to him. In Egypt he had a long conversation with a temple priest who imparted a strange story to the inquisitive Greek.

It happened that at the very time that Sennacherib the Assyrian marched against Egypt with a large armed force, there was a priest-king on the throne of Egypt who treated the army as a contemptible profession. The Egyptian warriors, who had been so disdainfully dealt with, refused to take the field. Thereupon the priest-king hurried to the temple in deep despair. There he was told that the god would help him. Relying upon this, the king, who had actually no soldiers behind him but only shopkeepers, tradesmen and market folk, went to meet Sennacherib. At the narrow entrances into the country "an army of field-mice swarmed over their opponents in the night.... gnawed through their quivers and their bows, and the handles of their shields, so that on the following day they fled minus their arms and a great number of them fell. Hence," concludes Herodotus' story, "this king still stands in Hephaistos' temple with a mouse in his hand, and with the following inscription: 'Look on me and live in safety'.'"

However obscure the meaning of this religious legend may be its core is historical.

For the peoples of the ancient world - as also for the Bible (I Sam. 6:4) - the mouse was what the rat was for the people of the Middle Ages. It was the symbol of plague.

On the edge of the city of Lachish, Starkey, the archaeologist, found possible confirmation of the story in 1948: a mass grave in the rock with 2,000 human skeletons, unmistakably thrown in with the utmost haste. If these were the remains of the victims of an epidemic, then its effects must have been devastating.

FIG- 55- King Sennacherib seated on his throne in front of the vanquished city of Lachish. (Detail of a campaign relief.)

The drama of the campaign had been unfolded and once more Jerusalem had escaped. But all round it the land of Judah presented a pitiable spectacle: "The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard," laments the prophet Isaiah, "as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers." The "country is desolate", the "cities are burned with fire ... and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers" (Isa. I:8, 7).

Only the thought of the marvellous deliverance of the city of David gives the sorely tried people new hope and courage. Undaunted, they bend all their energies to rebuilding, which, without interference from

p.262 -- Nineveh, goes quickly forward. Sennacherib never, came back. For the next twenty years the tyrant devoted himself to campaigns and battles in Mesopotamia. Then Sennacherib, like his father Sargon, fell by an assassin's hand. "And it came, to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead" (2 Kings19:37). So runs the brief account of the event in the Bible.

56FIG. .- Assyrian encampment in Sennacherib's day - a relief from Nineveh.

Esarhaddon himself, the successor to the throne, describes in vivid detail these turbulent days in Nineveh: "Disloyal thoughts inspired my brothers.... They rebelled. In order to exercise royal authority they killed Sennacherib. I became a raging lion, my mind was in a fury...."

Despite the intense cold and amid snow and ice he set out without delay to destroy his enemies in the eleventh month of the year 681 B.C. "These usurpers ... fled to an unknown land. I reached the quay on the Tigris, sent my troops across the broad river as if it were a canal. In Addar  1  ... I reached Nineveh well pleased. I ascended my father's throne with joy. The south wind was blowing ... whose breezes are propitious for royal authority.... I am Esarhaddon king of the world, king of Assyria ... son of Sennacherib."
1 -- Twelfth month.

p.263 -- Chapter 26 -- THE SEDUCTIVE RELIGIONS OF CANAAN -- The "abominations of the heathen" - Harsh words from the prophets - Philo of Byblos: a witness - Eusebius, the Christian Father, finds no one to believe him - Ploughman stumbles upon Ugarit - A powerful seaport disappears - Schaeffer digs at the "Head of Fennel" - The library in the priest's house - Three scholars decipher an unknown alphabet.

Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years injerusalem.... And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel - 2 Kings 21:1, 2.

"Abominations of the heathen," says the official report. Isaiah, the great prophet who was contemporary with king Manasseh,  1   puts it more plainly when he complains bitterly: "How is the faithful city become a harlot" (Isa. 1:21).

All the other prophets through the centuries constantly utter the same harsh and unambiguous accusation, which seems so monstrous to readers of the Bible.

The charge runs like a red thread through many books of the Old Testament, accompanying the chances and changes of Israel's history.

It rings out from the time when Israel after its long desert wanderings reached the Jordan about 1230 B.C. (Num. 25:1, 3) We hear it in the time of the Judges ( I Sam. 2:22). It echoes through the two kingdoms, Judah (I Kings 14:23, 24) as well as Israel (Hosea 4:13, 14). Even in the years of captivity by the waters of Babylon in the 6th century B.C. it is not silent (Ezek.. 16:15ff).

For 1,500 years after the books of the Bible had made their way into Europe, their contents were communicated to the people exclusively by priests and monks. For they were written in Greek, Latin and Hebrew. It was only at the Reformation, when the first translations had been printed and could be obtained by everyone, that as more and more people came to read the Bible for themselves they came across passages which startled them. The Bible spoke about harlots. It is understandable that people whose houses and dwellings lay close in the shadow and protection of cathedrals and churches which pointed them heavenwards, found difficulty in comprehending this fact.
1 -- 696-642 B.C.

p.264 -- What did the European, for whom God was "a safe stronghold", know about the religions of the land in which the Bible was first written?

The prophets and chroniclers tended to be thought of as men who, in their zeal for Yahweh and their anger against foreign religions, had probably gone too far. This objection was levelled at the Bible right up to the present day.

There is secular evidence for what the Bible calls "the abominations of the heathen". Philo of Byblos, a Phoenician scholar, who lived 100 years before Christ, had collected abundant material from his native land and had written a history of Phoenicia, the "Phoinikika". It deals with historical events in the seaports and maritime republics of Canaan from earliest times, and describes the Phoenician gods, mythologies and religious practices. As a reliable source for his work Philo of Byblos cites the Phoenician priest Sanchuniathon, who has been already referred to, and who lived in the 6th or 7th century B.C. When, as the result of an earthquake, the inscribed pillars in the temple of Melkart at Tyre crashed to the ground, Sanchuniathon is said to have copied the ancient inscriptions.

Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine discovered the writings of Philo of Byblos in A.D. 314 and gave an account of them. Much of what they recorded, particularly as regards mythology and religion, seemed quite incomprehensible.

At the head of the baals of Canaan was the god El. His wife was Asherah, a goddess who is also mentioned in the Bible. El married his three sisters, one of whom was Astarte. She is frequently referred to in the Old Testament as Ashtaroth (Judges 10:6 etc.). El not only kills his brother but also his own son: he cuts off his daughter's head, castrates his father, castrates himself and compels his confederates to do the same.

Little wonder that people in the Christian era were not prepared to believe stories of enormities of this sort.

With us it is accepted as a matter of course that every half civilised community controls the morality of its citizens. But in Canaan in those days the cult of sensuality was regarded as the worship of the gods, men and women prostitutes ranked as "sacred" to the followers of the religion, the rewards for their "services" went into the temple treasuries as "offerings for the god".

The last thing the prophets and chroniclers did was to exaggerate. How well founded their harsh words were has only become fully understood since the great discoveries of Ras Shamra.

On the north coast of Syria exactly opposite the east tip of Cyprus lies Minet El-Beida, the "White Haven". The Mediterranean waves break here on dazzling snow white limestone rocks in a wonderful display of colour, changing from light green to deep violet. Inland, great banks of clouds surrounded the lonely mountain top of "Jebel Aqra". The

p.265 -- natives say that long ago it was the dwelling place of the gods of their ancestors.

Near the sea in 1928 a peasant who was ploughing discovered a long underground passage. Initial investigation showed that it led to a tomb. It was a sepulchral vault in the style of Mycenae.

When the discovery was announced France, which as mandatory power was in control of Syria, reacted with its customary alacrity. M. Dussaud, curator of oriental antiquities in the Louvre, despatched Professor Claude F. A. Schaeffer with some other experts to the "White Haven". Exciting discoveries awaited them.

Half a mile from the shore and the old Mycenae grave rose an artificial hill. Round its base flowed a pleasant rippling brook. It had always been called by the natives Ras es Shamra, "Head of Fennel". Fennel was actually growing on the old heap of ruins which concealed the remains of the Phoenician royal city of Ugarit. More than 3,000 years ago it had been wiped out for good by the onslaught of the Sea Peoples.

Schaeffer had incredible luck with his excavations on the "Head of Fennel". For here at last the long-sought information about the religions of Canaan came to light. Between two temples, one of them dedicated to the god Baal and the other to the god Dagon, he found among the houses of rich merchants the house of the High Priest of Ugarit, who owned a handsome library, as is clear from the large number of inscribed tablets which were found there. Schaeffer's trained eye recogrnised at once that the writer must have been using a hitherto unknown Phoenician alphabet. It was surprisingly quickly deciphered in 1930 by three scholars - Professor H. Bauer, of the University of Halle, Germany, and C. Virolleaud and E. Dhorme of France. The bilingual documents - one of the languages is an ancient Canaanite dialect, which is something like pre-Mosaic Hebrew - are exclusively concerned with the gods and religions of old Canaan, with which Israel on entering the Promised Land had its first fateful encounter.

FIG. 57.- Phoenician merchantman

The myths and practices described in this unique collection of documents abounding in barbaric activities of gods and demigods, indicate the particular significance which was attached to the rites of the goddesses of fertility in Canaan.

The forms of worship which Canaan connected with fertility extended to everyday life. Under each of the houses which were excavated was found a burial vault in which the inhabitants of Ugarit buried their dead. Oddly shaped clay funnels were sunk into the ground

p.266 -- through which water, wine, oil and the flesh and blood of animal sacrifices were offered to the dead. The fertility cults did not hesitate to penetrate even the world beyond death. The feeding-funnels leave us in no doubt about that. They are decorated with the appropriate symbols.

Mandrakes played a large part in the ritual of the living. Ancient Canaanites and Phoenicians ascribed aphrodisiac properties to these fleshy roots. They were supposed to be able to stimulate passion and cure barrenness.

Gruesome and ferocious are Astarte and Anath, goddesses of fertility and of war alike. The Baal-epic of Ugarit depicts the goddess Anath: "With her might she mowed down the dwellers in the cities, she struck down the people of the sea-coasts, she destroyed the men of the east." She drove the men into her temple and closed the doors so that no one could escape. "She hurled chairs at the youths, tables at the warriors, footstools at the mighty men." "She waded up to the knees, up to the neck in blood. Human heads lay at her feet, human hands flew over her like locusts. She tied the heads of her victims as ornaments upon her back, their hands she tied upon her belt." "Her liver was swollen with laughing, her heart was full of joy, the liver of Anath was full of exultation." "When she was satisfied she washed her hands in streams of human blood before turning again to other things."

Anath is the sister and wife of Baal, the god of storm and rain. His symbol is a bull's head. Baal fertilises the cattle in the meadows with rain to make them fat. He is also concerned with their propagation. When he dies at the turn of the seasons, overpowered "like the bull under the knife of the sacrificer", his son takes over his duties. "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baalim" (Jud. 2:11). Quite recently an image of one of these gods was recovered on Israeli territory at Hazor. It was found in one of the heathen shrines which according to the Bible the Israelites erected in many places for the worship of strange gods. In the centre of an area encircled with flat stones, with two altars for burnt offerings dating from the days before the monarchy, stood some weapons and a clay jar. It contained, together with other bronze votive figures, an image of a seated god-a "baal".

Fig. 58.- Gold plaquette of a naked goddess of fertility.

Professor Schaeffer also found in Ugarit small images and amulets of Astarte. They are made of clay and gold and the goddess is naked. Snakes and pigeons, renowned in the Ancient East for their fertility, are her symbols.

The goddesses of fertility were worshipped principally on hills and knolls. There their votaries erected for them Asherim, set out "sacred pillars", trees, under which the rites were practised, as the Bible repeatedly points out: "For they also built them high places and pillars,

p.267 -- and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree" (I Kings 14:23 -R.V.).

It is only since the results of scientific investigation into Canaanite gods and Phoenician religions have come to light that we can properly gauge the intensity of the moral struggle that the people of Israel had to face.

What temptation for a simple shepherd folk, what perilous enticement! More than once the Baal religions got a firm foothold and penetrated right into the temple of Yahweh, into the Holy of Holies.

Without its stern moral law, without its faith in one God, without the commanding figures of its prophets, Israel would never have been able to survive this struggle with the Baals, with the religions of the fertility goddesses, with the Asherim and the high places.

That was the reason for the "objectionable passages". In the interests of truth the matter could not be passed over in silence.

If we look at these things with "Biblical eyes", as it were, then such is undoubtedly the impression we receive. Intensive study of the archaeological finds at Ugarit, particularly of the clay tablets, has revealed not only contrasts but also remarkable correspondences between Biblical and old Canaanite religious conceptions.

The Bible continually gives us glimpses of a state of affairs which presumably was quite different from what it appears to have been at first glance. For example, the authentic people's religion of the "children of Israel" as it was actually practised over wide areas must have been very different from what the authors of the Biblical writings would have liked to see.

The prophets continually found cause for anger and the Bible authors complained increasingly about "the worship of idols" and "golden calves". Such statements are in themselves of necessity an indication that cults must have been practised to which a part of the population obviously clung, but which were not in accordance with the norm regarded as valid by the Biblical authors and were consequently condemned.

A few examples will show what the real state of affairs must have been. Mention has already been made in another connection of the way in which Rachel, the wife of the Biblical "patriarch" Jacob, stole the "images" (teraphim) of her father, Laban (Gen 31:19ff). A brazen serpent idol from the early nomadic period (Numbers 21:9) was worshipped in the Temple at Jerusalem until the time of King Hezekiah of Judah, around 700 B.C. (2 Kings 18:4). Even Solomon, the builder of the Temple, incurred the wholehearted disapproval of the Biblical writers by allowing the ladies of his harem to adhere to gods and cults with which they considered it a grave mistake to have contact.

He not only allowed "high places" to these gods to be built on the Mount of Olives (I Kings 11:1-8; 2 Kings 23:13) but himself took part in

p.268 -- such cults. Almost all the Israelite and Jewish rulers after him acted in the same way. Even a fanatic like the cruel Jehu of Israel (842/1-815/4 B.C.) who was responsible for the dreadful slaughter of the worshippers of Baal (2 Kings 10:18-28) was said to have taken part in unorthodox cults (2 Kings 10:29.) Among the "children of Israel" naked figures of "Astarte" were quite common. Even "in the shadow of the Temple", so to speak, of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, the British archaeologist Kathleen M. Kenyon excavated a room which pillars for the cult showed to be a heathen place of worship. Popular religion as practised by the "children of Israel", then, was in reality rather different from what the Bible would have us believe. The Bible itself allows us far too many glimpses of this.

Whilst on the one hand things were occurring in the "Holy Land" which were not all in accordance with the Biblical conception of worship, there was no lack on the other hand, among Israel's neighbours, who are often under such heavy attack in the Bible, of divine personifications of moral principles. The Canaanites were also acquainted with the "Biblical" concept of the kinghood of God, which was consequently not confined to the Bible. Now that texts from Ugarit have made us better acquainted with ancient Canaanite gods like El and Baal, we can only be amazed at the extent to which these gods gave expression to religious concepts which we later encounter in the Bible. This goes so far that even the God of the Bible is the "King above all Gods" (Psalms 95:3; 96:4; 97:7, 9), which naturally only means anything if people believe in other gods as well. Like the Ugaritic Baal, the Biblical King of Gods has his "mountain of holiness" in the north (Psalm 48:3). It is thanks to the Biblical scholar Otto Eissfeldt of Halle that we know which mountain was meant - the 1,770 metre-high Zaphon or Mons Casius which, visible from afar and frequently shrouded by rain clouds, is today known as Jebel al-Agra, and lies 30 kilometres north of Ras Shamra on the Mediterranean coast of northern Syria. And just as Baal, the storm god, rides on the clouds, so the God of the Bible rides on the clouds and winds (Psalm 104:3).

In spite of all the continual disapproval of the prophets, El and Baal personified moral values. El was "holy" and Baal, like the God of the Covenant, acted as "judge" and ensured justice. The Bible has thus received confirmation and elucidation from a quarter from which it was least to be expected. The despised and accursed religion of ancient Canaan has helped us to reach a new understanding of Biblical state ments about the "religion of the fathers". And when the Biblical fathers called upon El-Elyon (the "all highest"), E1-0lam (the "ancient of ancients", "the eternal"), El-Roy ("he who appears", "he who sees me") and El-Shaddai ("the highest" or "almighty"), their prayers were directed, as many scholars believe, to the chief Canaanite god El in one of his local variants.

p.269 -- El and Baal were the divine kings of the Canaanite Pantheon. They were later replaced by Yahweh, the god of the "chosen people" of the Bible. Yet there were certain differences. El was static, at rest, unapproachable, while Baal, in contrast, was dynamic, active, actual.

One thing is clear - a royal god such as the God of the Bible, beside whom there was no place for other gods even in a subservient role, was naturally incompatible with a myth which included other gods - the exuberant growth of a myth of this kind endowed the ancient gods of Canaan with features which we find bizarre - for such a myth would have implied adherence to the belief in other gods....

p 270 -- Chapter 27 -- THE END OF NINEVEH AS A WORLD POWER -- Ashurbanipal plunders Thebes - An empire stretching from the Nile to the Persian Gulf - The "great and noble Asnapper" - Big game hunting with bow and arrow- Assyria's strength is exhausted - Crushed between two powers - Medes and Chaldeans arm - Scythian hordes in Palestine - Nineveh sinks in ruins - The "Fertile Crescent" breathes again - A Biblical slip of the pen - Gadd's discovery in London - Nebuchadnezzar, crown prince of Babylon.

Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it.... Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength and it was infinite.... Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets ... - Nahum 3:8-10.

In 663 B.C. the Assyrians celebrated the greatest triumph in their whole history. King Ashurbanipal conquered the capital of Upper Egypt No-Amun, which the Greeks called Thebes. According to Homer it had 100 gates and until then it had been regarded as impregnable. It was an event which caused an enormous stir in the world of the ancient orient, in the "Fertile Crescent" itself and as far as Greece. The Assyrians plundered the metropolis, whose temples contained boundless wealth. "I conquered the whole city... silver, gold, precious stones, the whole contents of its palace, coloured vestments, linen, magnificent horses, slaves, both men and women, two great obelisks of shining bronze weighing 2,500 talents; I took the temple gates from their place and brought them to Assyria. Enormous spoils of priceless worth did I take with me from Thebes," exulted Ashurbanipal.

The Assyrian war machine had made a tabula rasa of the far famed temple-city on the Nile. Excavations fully confirm the description of the catastrophe given by the prophet Nahum and by the victor himself. The capital of Upper Egypt never again recovered from this blow.

After this victorious expedition the world of those days lay at Assyria's feet. From the upper reaches of the Nile to the mountains of Armenia and the mouth of the Euphrates the nations were under its yoke, their peoples reduced to vassals.

But scarcely had Assyria reached the pinnacle of its might when the power of the empire began to wane. Ashurbanipal was not a conqueror

p 271 -- or war lord of the calibre of his father Esarhaddon, to say nothing of his prodigious grandfather Sennacherib. Ashurbanipal, the "great and noble Asnapper" (Ezra 4:10), had already developed other interests.

Fig.59.- Map (Assyrian Empire under King Ashurbanipal 660 B.C.)

After the long succession of bloodstained tyrants this one Assyrian did the world an inestimable service. He ordered the transcription of the masterpieces of Akkadian literature, including the Babylonian Creation story: he commissioned the production of dictionaries and grammars of the various languages which were spoken in his colossal empire. The library which he built up in Nineveh was by far the largest and most important in the Ancient East. Without this precious collection mankind would have been infinitely poorer in its knowledge of the thought and literature of the "Fertile Crescent" from earliest times.

Nevertheless the wild streak in this last important scion of the race of Assyrian rulers was not completely tamed. As well as being a lover of art and literature he loved hunting. Ashurbanipal was a big game hunter in the proper sense of the word, and his successors in this pursuit can hardly compete with him. It was not with planes and armourplated jeeps at 6o miles an hour, not with elephant-howdahs equipped

p 272 -- with telescopic sights which enable the fatal shot to be fired from a safe distance where there is no threat of slashing paws or snapping teeth, that this big game hunter of the ancient world set out to attack his prey. On these wonderfully vivid large reliefs which were found in his palaces on the Tigris he hunts in a light two-wheeled hunting car or on horseback - with bow and arrow or javelin. "30 elephants, 257 wild beasts, 370 lions," according to the cuneiform texts, made up the splendid total of Ashurbanipal's bag.

"Woe to the bloody city! ... There is a multitude of slain and a great number of carcases, and there is none end of their corpses.... (Nahum 3:1, 3).

So the prophet Nahum announces the end of Nineveh, the end of its world empire and centuries of bloody tyranny.

With the death of Ashurbanipal  the sudden and rapid collapse began. The new great powers of Indo-Aryans and Semites gripped the gigantic structure between them like a vice, crushed it and divided the .colossal spoil between them.

To the north-east the kingdom of the Medes in the mountains of Iran had come into being. Then "Cyaxares came to power," writes Herodotus, "and united all Asia beyond the Halys under him. Then he gathered together all his peoples and marched against Nineveh to take the city."

In the south-east of Mesopotamia a second adversary had sprung up whom the Assyrians had to take seriously. From the fringe of civilisation south of the estuary of the Euphrates, where "Ur of the Chaldees" was also situated, Semitic tribes had pushed their way inland and had imported new vigour into the old kingdom of Babylon. They called themselves "Chaldeans". Merodach-Baladan, who a century before had made a name for himself and had plagued Assyria for many years, was one of them.

Meantime his countrymen had succeeded in penetrating the whole country in a series of waves of invasion. In 625 B.C. a Chaldean assumed. control over South Mesopotamia. Nabopolassar became king and founder of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The Chaldeans likewise had only one end in view, the destruction of Assyria.

At the same time as the two powers, north and south, were lying in wait to administer the death blow to Assyria, a wild horde burst out of the Caucasus into the "Fertile Crescent", penetrated into Media and inundated the Assyrian empire. These were the Scythians. Looting and burning, they forced their way from Mesopotamia through Palestine to, the very frontiers of Egypt.

Through the maritime plain by the Mediterranean stormed this unruly mob of Scythian horsemen. Fearful and frightening rumours
1 -- 626 B.C.

p 273 -- heralded their approach. The inhabitants of Judah must have seen them as they looked down from the mountains; the prophet Zephaniah foresees with horror what will happen. "For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation: they shall drive out Ashdod at the noonday and Ekron shall be rooted up.... In the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening...." (Zeph. 2:4, 7).

"They headed for Egypt," Herodotus relates, "and while they were in Palestinian Syria, Psammitichus,  1  king of Egypt, went to meet them and persuaded them with gifts and pleas to go no further. And while the Scythians on their way back were in the Syrian city of Ashkelon a few of them remained behind and plundered the temple of Aphrodite Urania. Those Scythians who had plundered the temple in Ashkelon together with their descendants for ever were smitten by the goddess with a gynaecological ailment."

Within ten years the Asiatic horsemen had disappeared again like an evil apparition.

In Palestine the name of a city kept the memory of the Scythians green. Beth-Shan was re-named Scythopolis. It is not known, however, how the town acquired this name. There are no traces of occupation by the Scythians nor of occupation by a garrison of Scythian mercenaries which would also be conceivable as the origin of the placename. Scythopolis thus remains one of the many points of disagreement among experts who have specialised in the archaeology of the Holy Land.

Then the Medes and the Neo-Babylonians bore down upon the Assyrians on two fronts. They attacked from north and south at the same time. Ashur, the great city and fortress on the Tigris, was the first to fall in 614 B.C. "The king of Babylon and his army, which had set out to assist the Medes, did not arrive in time for the battle. The king of Babylon and Cyaxares  2   met each other among the ruins of the city," says a Neo-Babylonian chronicle, "and pledged themselves to friendship and a confederacy.... They took vast quanties of booty in the city and reduced it to a heap of rubble and ruins."

In 612 B.C. the alliance of Medes and Neo-Babylonians achieved its aim. After a "violent battle the city was taken": Nineveh was destroyed. "And he will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria: and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness." Zephaniah had prophesied this (Zeph. 2:13) and now it had happened: - the nerve-centre of Assyrian power destroyed and reduced to ashes, the Nineveh which for centuries with its armies of conquest and occupation, with torture, terror and mass deportations had brought nothing but blood and tears to the ancient world.

The "Fertile Crescent" breathed again. Jubilation filled its alfflicted peoples - new hope began to spring up, in which Judah shared.
1 -- Psamtik I - 663-609 B.C.
2 --
King of the Medes.

p 274 -- After the death of Ashurbanipal, when the hated Assyrian colossus was shaken by the first signs of ultimate collapse, king Josiah  had without hesitation banned the practice of foreign religions in Jerusalem. There was more to that than merely religious objections. It clearly signified the termination of the state of vassalage, of which the gods of Nineveh, imported by compulsion, were symbolic. Together with these compulsory deities, Josiah expelled all the Mesopotamian "workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images and the idols" (2 Kings 23:24). He also cleared out all the Canaanite religious practices (2 Kings 23:7)

Josiah's reforms paved the way for a renewed religious and national vitality which developed into a regular frenzy when news of the fall of Nineveh confirmed their freedom.

Meantime something quite unexpected happened which threatened to ruin everything.... "Pharaoh- Nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him, and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him" (2 Kings 23:29). This passage from the Bible is a perfect example of how a single word can completely change the meaning of a narrative. In this case the wrong use of the little word "against" brands Josiah as the accomplice of the hated tyrant. At some point or other the. word translated "against" has been wrongly copied. In reality Pharaoh Necho went to the aid of Assyria, i.e. "towards". It was only through a chance discovery that the Assyriologist C. I. Gadd found out this historical slip of the pen.

The place of discovery was quite outside the normal archaeological pattern - it was a museum. In 1923 Gadd was translating a badly damaged fragment of cuneiform text in the British Museum which had been dug up in Mesopotamia many years previously.

It read as follows: "In the month of Du'uz [June-July]   the king of Assyria procured a large Egyptian army and marched against Harran to conquer it.... Till the month of Ulul [August-September] he fought against the city but accomplished nothing."

The "large Egyptian army" was the forces of Pharaoh Necho.

After the fall of Nineveh what remained of the Assyrian forces had retreated to Northern Mesopotamia. Their king embarked upon the forlorn hope of reconquering from there what he had lost. It was for this purpose that Pharaoh Necho had hastened to his aid. But when after two months of fighting not even the town of Harran had been recaptured, Necho retired.

It was the appearance of Egyptian troops in Palestine that decided Josiah to prevent the Egyptians at all costs from rendering military aid to the hated Assyrians. So it came about that the little army of Judah marched against the far superior Egyptian force, with the tragic ending
1 -- 639-609 B.C.
2 -- 609 B.C.

p 275 -- at Megiddo. "Neko," writes Herodotus, "also defeated the Syrians  in a land engagement at Magdolus."  

On the way back to Egypt Pharaoh Necho assumed the role of overlord of Syria and Palestine. He made an example of Judah, so as to leave it in no doubt on whom the country now depended. Jehoahaz, Josiah's son and successor, was stripped of his royal dignities and taken as a prisoner to the Nile (2 Kings 23:31-34). In his stead Necho placed another son of Josiah upon the throne, Eliakim, whose name he changed to Jehoiakim (2 Kings 23:34).

Egyptologists have not been able so far to produce any hymns of triumph of Pharaoh Necho. Herodotus learned from Egyptian priests a century and a half later that he had presented to the temple of Apollo in Miletus "the garb in which he had accomplished these deeds" in thankoffering for the participation of Greek mercenaries in his expedition. In the land he conquered he left nothing but a stele. It bears his name in hieroglyphic script. Its fragments were left lying in Sidon.

Four years later - 605 B.C. - Necho's dream, of suzerainty over "Asia", as his predecessors had always called it, was at an end.

Even while he was collecting tribute in Palestine, decisions were being taken about his "conquest" elsewhere. After their joint victory the Medes and the Neo-Babylonians had divided the empire of Assyria between them. The Medes annexed the north and north-east; Babylon the south and south-west. Syria and Palestine thus fell to king Nabopolassar. But in the meantime he had grown old and was no longer fit for the fray. He therefore sent the crown prince of Chaldea, his son Nebuchadnezzar, to take possession of the new territories.

Necho made an attempt to repulse him but failed miserably. Near Carchemish, in the same region where four years previously he had endeavoured to assist the last king of Assyria, he suffered total defeat at the famous passage across the Euphrates from Mesopotamia to North Syria (Jer. 46:2).

Necho fled through Palestine followed by the jeers of the prophet Jeremiah: "Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise: he hath let the appointed time pass by.... The sound thereof shall go like the serpent...." (Jer. 46:17, 22 - R.V.).

After this shameful flight Judah saw no more of Necho. "And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land: for the king of Babylon had taken, from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates, all that pertained to the king of Egypt" (2 Kings 24:7). The crown prince of Chaldea was not able to exploit his victory at Carchemish. In the course of the battle news of the death of his father overtook him, and he had perforce to return to Babylon. After Nebuchadnezzar 3   had acceded to the throne more important affairs of state kept him in his own country 1 -- Judah
2 -- Megiddo
3 -- 605-562 B.C.

p 276 -- for the next few years. Judah was spared a fresh occupation for a time and was left to itself.

There are no contemporary records giving us the details of what happened in Judah around the turn of the 6th century. The Bible gives no clear picture of when, for example, the Chaldeans made their first appearance in the country, or of when they started to demand tribute. The Neo-Babylonian kings, unlike their predecessors the Assyrians, left no informative annals behind them. Inscriptions on buildings which have been preserved merely indicate historical events.

To Part 3