Volume 2

Jesus Travels to Ephron
341
were distinctly visible. Jesus now took leave of those that
had accompanied Him from Azo, and proceeded to
Ephron. Azo was the best place He had met on His way
in these parts. Jesus was as usual received outside of
Ephron by the Levites of the place, and here too were
found already waiting for Him a crowd of sick. They lay
in wooden chests to which handles were attached for convenience
in carrying. Jesus cured them all. Ephron lay on
the southern height of a narrow pass through which
flowed a stream down into the Jordan. The latter could
be seen far away through the defile. The stream of which
I speak was often dried up. Opposite Ephron rose a narrow
but lofty mountain. It was upon it that Jephte's
daughter with her maids awaited the signal of her father's
victory, namely, the rising of a column of smoke. The
moment she descried it, she hurried back to Ramoth
whence with great pomp she set out to meet her father.
Jesus instructed and cured many here.
The Levites of this place belonged to an ancient sect
called Rechabites. Jesus reproached them for the hardness
and severity of their opinions, and advised the people
not to observe many of their prescriptions. In His instruction
He alluded to the punishment of those Levites
of Bethsames that had irreverently (too curiously) gazed
upon the Ark of the Covenant which had been brought
back by the Philistines. 3 The Rechabites were descended
from Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses. In early times
they lived under tents, carried on no husbandry, and abstained
from the use of wine. They exercised the office of
chanters and gatekeepers in the Temple. Those men that
near Bethsames had, contrary to orders, gazed upon the
returning Ark and had for so doing been punished with
death, were Rechabites who there dwelt under tents.
Jeremias tried once, but in vain, to make them drink
wine in the Temple. He afterward held up to Israel as an
example the obedience of these nlen to their laws. In