The Oxford History of the Biblical World Read Free

the main route to and from Egypt skirted it, occasionally hugging the foothills to the east (the biblical Shephelah, or “lowland”). Along this route lay several of the major cities of ancient Palestine. Broad in the south, the coastal plain narrows as one moves north up the coast from Egypt, and the Shephelah tapers off as well, ending at the promontory of Mount Carmel, which juts into the sea at modern Haifa. In parts of Lebanon the coastal plain virtually disappears.
    East of the coastal plain and, in the south, of the Shephelah, runs a mountainous ridge, comprising what the Bible calls the “hill country of Judah,” “the hill countryof Ephraim,” the hills of lower and upper Galilee, and “the Lebanon.” This mountainous spine is extremely rugged, with the elevations increasing from south to north. The name
Lebanon
derives from the word for “white,” because the frequent snow in its mountains lasts into early summer. The mountains of Lebanon were also densely forested with cypress and cedar. The rugged terrain of the mountains made travel though them difficult, except in the transverse valleys that lead through them from the coast to the Rift Valley.
    Next comes the Rift Valley itself, a deep gouge in the earth’s surface that extends over 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles) from southern Turkey into East Africa. The Orontes River Valley in Syria, the Biqa in Lebanon, the Jordan Valley, the Arabah, and the Red Sea are all parts of this gash, which reaches its lowest point where the Jordan ends, at the Dead Sea—the lowest elevation on the entire surface of the earth. The descent from the hills to the Rift Valley is abrupt. Jerusalem, for example, has an elevation of about 762 meters (2,500 feet) above sea level, and lies about 55 kilometers (35 miles) east of the Mediterranean, but only 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the Dead Sea, which itself is nearly 400 meters (1,300 feet) below sea level. The Rift Valley is watered by major watercourses—the Orontes River in Syria and the Jordan River in Palestine—making those parts of the valley highly productive agricultural regions, despite the infrequent rainfall in the lower Jordan Valley, which lies in a rain shadow. At the northern end of the Jordan Valley is the setting of much of the Gospels, the Lake of Galilee. Another indication of the dramatic changes in the landscape in a small area is that from the Lake of Galilee, some 210 meters (700 feet) below sea level, can be seen the snow-covered peaks of Mount Hermon, which, with an elevation of more than 2,800 meters (9,200 feet), is the highest mountain in the region. South of the hill country is a marginal zone, the biblical Negeb, which merges with the Sinai Peninsula. The Sinai and the Arabian Peninsulas essentially constitute an extension of the North African desert, separated from it by the Red Sea.
    West of the Rift Valley in Palestine, the ascent to the plateau of Jordan is equally abrupt. Mount Nebo, from which Moses with his extraordinary eyesight could view the entire Promised Land (Deut. 34.1–3), is some 50 kilometers (30 miles) due east of Jerusalem and has the same elevation. Between the two lies the northern tip of the Dead Sea, making a total change in altitude of nearly 2,000 meters (6,400 feet) as one moves from one location to the other. The Transjordanian plateau lies slightly higher than the hill country west of the Jordan, and receives somewhat less rainfall—sufficient, however, for agriculture and for sheep and goat herding. It is also cut by several rivers that flow westward into the Jordan and the Dead Sea. Along its entire length, from Damascus in the north and southward to the eastern arm of the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aqaba/Eilat) and beyond to Arabia, ran the “King’s Highway” (Num. 20.17), the principal route for traders in incense and spices.
    To the east of the relatively level Transjordanian plateau is a region largely uninhabited since prehistoric times, the Syrian desert.