Smith's Bible Dictionary.pdf - Online Christian Library

Smith's Bible Dictionary
it, the Philistine plain became sooner known to the western world than the country farther inland,
and was called by them Syria Palestina-Philistine Syria. From thence it was gradually extended to
the country farther inland, till in the Roman and later Greek authors, both heathen sad Christian, it
became the usual appellation for the whole country of the Jews, both west and east of Jordan. The
word is now so commonly employed in our more familiar language to destinate the whole country
of Israel that although biblically a misnomer, it has been chosen here as the most convenient heading
under which to give a general description of THE HOLY LAND, embracing those points which
have not been treated under the separate headings of cities or tribes. This description will most
conveniently divide itself Into three sections:— I. The Names applied to the country of Israel in
the Bible and elsewhere. II. The Land; its situation, aspect, climb, physical characteristics in
connection with its history, its structure, botany and natural history. III. The History of the country
is so fully given under its various headings throughout the work that it is unnecessary to recapitulate
it here. I. [THE Names].—Palestine, then, is designated in the Bible by more than one name.
•During the patriarchal period, the conquest and the age of the Judges and also where those early
periods are referred to in the later literature (as) (Psalms 105:11) it is spoken of as “Canaan,” or
more frequently “the land of Canaan,” meaning thereby the country west of the Jordan, as opposed
to “the land of Gilead.” on the east.
•During the monarchy the name usually, though not frequently, employed is “land of Israel.” (1
Samuel 13:19)
•Between the captivity and the time of our Lord the name “Judea” had extended itself from the
southern portion to the whole of the country, and even that beyond the Jordan. (Matthew 19:1;
Mark 10:1)
•The Roman division of the country hardly coincided with the biblical one, and it does not appear
that the Romans had any distinct name for that which we understand by Palestine.
•Soon after the Christian era we find the name Palestina in possession of the country.
•The name most frequently used throughout the middle ages, and down to our own time, is Terra
Sancta—the Holy Land. II. THE LAND.-The holy land is not in size or physical characteristics
proportioned to its moral and historical position as the theatre of the most momentous events in
the world’s history. It is but a strip of country about the size of Wales, less than 140 miles in length
and barely 40 in average breadth, on the very frontier of the East, hemmed in between the
Mediterranean Sea on the one hand and the enormous trench of the Jordan valley on the other, by
which it is effectually cut off from the mainland of Asia behind it. On the north it is shut in by the
high ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and by the chasm of the Litany. On the south it is no
less enclosed by the arid and inhospitable deserts of the upper pert of the peninsula of Sinai.
•Its position.—Its position on the map of the world—as the world was when the holy land first
made its appearance in history—is a remarkable one. (a) It was on the very outpost— an the
extremist western edge of the East. On the shore of the Mediterranean it stands, as if it had advanced
as far as possible toward the west, separated therefrom by that which, when the time arrived proved
to be no barrier, but the readiest medium of communication-the wide waters of the “great sea.”
Thus it was open to all the gradual influences of the rising communities of the West, while it was
saved from the retrogression and decrepitude which have ultimately been the doom of all purely
eastern states whose connections were limited to the East only. (b) There was, however, one
channel, and but one, by which it could reach and be reached by the great Oriental empires. The
rivals road by which the two great rivals of the ancient world could approach one another—by
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William Smith