Page images
PDF
EPUB

§. 8.

Of the rivers and mountains of Asser.

THE rivers to the north of Asser are Adonis, afterwards Canis, to which Ziegler joineth Lycus, Ptolomy, Leontis; both which fall into the sea near Berytus: which river of Leontis, Montanus draws near unto Zidon; finding his head notwithstanding, where 1 Ptolomy doth, between Zidon and Tyre. It hath also a river called Fons hortorum Libani, which Adrichome, out of Brochard, entitleth Eleutherus; for which he also citeth m Pliny and 1 Maccabees xi. but neither of those authorities prove Eleutherus to be in Asser, for this river falleth into the sea at the isle of Aradus, not far from Balanæa, witness n Ptolomy; and therefore Pinetus calleth it Valania, and Postellus, Velana; which river boundeth Phoenicia on the north side, to which Strabo also agreeth; but this principal river of Asser, Arias Montanus calleth Gabatus. Christianus Schrot, out of the mouth and papers of Peter Laicstan, (which Laicstan in this our age both viewed and described the Holy Land,) calleth the main river, Fons hortorum Libani; and one of the streams, which runneth into it from the north side, Naar; and another, from the south-west, Chabul, of the city adjoining of the same name; for Eleutherus it cannot be. There is also another river described by Adrichome, named Jepthael, which I find in no other author, and for which he citeth Joshua xix. but the word P Ghe, which is added there to Jepthael, is not taken for a river, but for a valley; and for a valley, the Vulgar, the Geneva, and Arias Montanus turn it. There is also found in Asser the river of Belus, remembered by Josephus and Tacitus, which is also called Pagidas, saith 9 Pliny: out of the sands of this river are

1 Asiæ Tab. 4.

Plin. 1. 9.

n Asia Tab. 4.

• Post Orthosiam et Eleutherum est Tripolis.

r The word Nachal is ambiguous, either for a valley or for a river; but this word Ghe is always a valley, as in Gehinnon and Geslemanim. Joseph. 1. 2. Bell. Jud. c. 3.

a Lib. 5.c. 19. In Josh. xix. 26. it is called Shichor; of which name many understand another stream, Josh. xiii. 3. which, running by Petra of Arabia, falleth into the lake Sirbonis, and divideth Egypt from the promised land; whereabout they place Rhinocolura, for which city Junius taketh Shichor in that place of Joshua; but howsoever, whether this Shichor, Josh.

made the best glass, which sometime the Zidonians practised, and now the Venetians at Murana. Arias Montanus makes Belus to be a branch of Chedumim; which it cannot be; for Belus is known to flow from out the lake Cendevia, as all cosmographers, both ancient and modern, and the later travellers into those parts witness. It is true, that the river of Chison taketh water from Chedumim, but not in that fashion which Montanus hath described it; neither doth it find the sea at Ptolomais Acon, according to Montanus, but further to the south, between Caiphas and Sicaminum, witness Zeigler, Adrichomius, and Schrot.

Besides these rivers there are divers famous springs and fountains; as that of living waters adjoining to Tyre; and 1 Maserephot, or, after St. Jerome, Maserephotmaim, whose well, filled by the flood of the sea adjoining, (they say,) the inhabitants, by seething the water, make salt thereof, as at Nantwich.

t

S

The mountains which bound Asser on the north are those of Anti-libanus, which with Libanus bound Colesyria; two great ledges of hills, which, from the sea of Phoenicia and Syria, extend themselves far into the land eastward: four hundred stadia, or furlongs, according to Strabo, for that length he giveth to the valley of Colesyria, which those mountains enclose; but Pliny gives them 1500 furlongs in length from the west (where they begin at Theipsophon, or Dei facies, near Tripolis) to the mountains of Arabia beyond Damascus, where Anti-libanus turneth towards the south. These ledges, where they begin to part Traconitis and Basan from the Desert Arabia, are called Hermon, which Moses also nameth Sion, the Phoenicians Syrion, and the Amorites Sanir; neither is this any one mountain apart, but a continuation of hills, which, running further southerly, is in the scriptures called Galaad, or Gilead, the same being still a part of Libanus, as the prophet Jeremy proveth: Galaad tu

xiii. 3. be a river or a city, it appears that this name is found, both in the north bound of the Holy Land, Josh. xix. 26. and in the south bound, Josh. xiii. 3.

See the note in the second section of this paragraph.

RALEGH, HIST. WORLD. VOL. II.

• Strabo, 1. 10.

Plin. 1. 5. c. 20. Deut. IV. .48.

[ocr errors]

mihi caput Libani; noting, that this Galaad is the highest of all those hills of Libanus. u Strabo knows them by the name of Traconitæ, and Ptolomy by Hippus. Arias Montanus calleth these mountains bordering Asser, Libanus, for Anti-libanus, contrary to all other cosmographers; but he giveth no reason of his opinion.

They take the name of Libanus from their white tops; because, according to Tacitus, the highest of them are covered with snow all the summer; the Hebrew word libanon, saith Weissenburgh, signifieth whiteness. Others call them by that name of the frankincense which those trees yield, because λßávoros is also the Greek word for that gum.

* Niger out of Aphrodiseus affirmeth, that on Libanus there falleth a kind of honey-dew, which is by the sun congealed into hard sugar, which the inhabitants call sacchar, from whence came the Latin word saccharum.

The rivers which Libanus bestoweth on the neighbour regions are, Chrysorrhoas, Jordan, Eleutherus, Leontes, Lycus, Adonis, Fons hortorum Libani, and others.

The rest of the mountains of Asser are those hills above Tyre, and the hills of Saron, both exceeding fruitful; but those are but of a low stature compared with Libanus; for from Nebo, or the mountain of Abarim in Ruben, Moses beheld Libanus threescore miles distant.

SECT. IV.

The tribe of Nephtalim.

§. I.

Of the bounds of Nephtalim, and of Heliopolis and Abila. THE next portion of the land of Canaan bordering Asher was the Upper Galilee; the greatest part whereof fell to the lot of Nephtalim, the son of Jacob by Billa, the handmaid of Rachel; who, while they abode in Egypt, were increased to the number of 53,400 persons, able to bear arms, numbered at mount Sinai; all which leaving their bodies in the desert there entered the Holy Land of their "Strab. 1. 10. Ptol. Asiæ Tab. 4. Sueton. Nig. p. 503.

[ocr errors]

sons 45,400, besides infants, women, and children under twenty years of age. The land of Nephtalim took beginning on the north part from the fountains of Jordan, and the hills of Libanus adjoining, as far south as the sea of Galilee, bounded on the west by Asher, and on the east and south-east by Jordan.

On the north side of Libanus, and adjoining to this territory of Nephtalim, did the Amorites (or Emorites) also inhabit; in which tract, and under Libanus, was the city of Heliopolis, which the height of the mountains adjoining shadowed from the sun the better part of the day. Postellus calls it Balbec; Niger, Marbech; and Leonclavius, Beallebeca.

Of this name of y Heliopolis, there are two great cities in Egypt; the first called On, by the Hebrews and the Chaldean paraphrast, otherwise Bethsemes, or, after the Latins, Solis oppidum, or Domus solis, "the city of the sun;" into which, saith Ulpian, Severus the Roman emperor sent a colony; the other, Gestelius nameth Dealmarach; and of this name Stephanus also findeth a city in Thrace, and Glycas in Phrygia.

There is also in the same valley, adjoining to Nephtalim, Chalcis and Abila. Chalcis, of whom the region towards Palmyrena hath the name of Chalcidica, over which Herod, Agrippa, and Berenice the queen commanded.

Abila also gave name to the region adjoining, of which Lysanius, the son of Herod the elder, became tetrarch or governor, whereof Ptolomy gave it the addition of Lysanii, and called it Abila Lysanii. Volaterran names it Aphila; of which he notes that one Diogenes, a famous sophister, was native, who by Volaterran is entitled Aphileus, not Abileus. After that this city of Abila, or Aphila, had received the Christian faith, Priscillinus became bishop thereof, slain afterwards by our British Maximus at Trever. For distinction of this city, (if it be not the same, as it may be

y Guil. Tyr. Bell. Sac. 1. 9. c. 15. Theodor. 4. Hist. Ecclesiast. Mela. 1. 3. c. 9. Just. Gestel. in itinerar.

Joseph. in pluribus locis. Euseb. 8.
Demonst. Volat. l. 11. f. 243.

thought to be the same,) it is to be remembered, that in the tribe of z Manasseh, joining upon the bounds of the tribe of Nephtalim, there is another city of the same name, saving that it is written with an e for an i, and called Abela, remembered in the 20th chapter of the second of Samuel; the same Josephus calls Abelmachea, and Jerome Bethmacha. In the place of Samuel, for distinction sake, it is written Abel Beth-Mahaca, (for belike it was the town of Mahaca, the wife of Macir, the son of Manasseh, the father of Gilead;) in the Chronicles it is called Abel-Majim. This city Joab besieged, because Seba the son of Bichri, who rebelled against David, fled thereinto for succour; but a certain wise woman of the city persuading the people to cast Seba's head over the wall, Joab retired his army. The same city was afterwards taken by the king of Damascus, Benhadad, and after a while by Teglatphalasar.

The word Abel may be expounded, either to signify bewailing or a plain ground, and therefore no marvel that many towns (with some addition for distinction sake) were thus called; for even of bewailing many places took name; as Bochim, Judg. ii. 4. and so doubtless a Abel-Misraim, Gen. 1. 11. and yet Junius, in his note upon Numb. xxxiii. 49. thinks that Abel-Sittim was so called, rather by reason of the plain ground there, (to wit, in the land of Moab,) and so perhaps Abel-Meholah in the tribe of Ephraim; the town of Elisha the prophet; also Abel-Vinearum of the Ammonites, whither Jephta pursued them.

§. 2. Of Hazor.

IN this tribe of Nephtalim, was that famous city of Jabin, in Joshua's time, called Asor, (or, after the Chaldean para

z Also a third in Ephraim, called Abel-Mechola; and a fourth in Reuben, called Abel-Sittim, also AbelMitsraim, at the ford of Jordan, and, as it seems, in the same tribe of Reuben, of all which, in that which follows: to which also we may add AbelMagnum, the name, as some think, of a city otherwise called Bethshemes,

near the border of the Philistines; or according to others, of the great stone in the border. 1 Sam. vi. 18. Joseph. Ant. 1. 7. c. 10. 2 Sam. xx. 1 Kings xv. 2 Kings xv.

a And Abel Magnum, 1 Sam. vi. 18. Judg. vii. 24. 1 Reg. xix. 15. Judg. xi. 35.

« PreviousContinue »