Equipped For Every Good Work

Lesson 19

GEOGRAPHY OF THE PROMISED LAND

Jehovah God said to Abraham as his faithful patriarch gazed out over the land of Canaan: "Unto thy seed will I give this land." It was about 470 years later that Abraham's seed, multiplied to millions, crossed the Jordan and entered this promised land under the visible leadership of Joshua. They fought the Canaanite squatters for six years before they were able to divide the land by lot among the tribes of Israel. It was more than four hundred years later that under kings David and Solomon the typical kingdom of Israel extended to embrace all of the Promised Land.

The Promised Land is long from north to south and narrow from cast to west. All along the Mediterranean coast is a strip of fertile plain, pierced from time to time by spurs that jut shoreward from the mountain range to the east. The most noted thrust is that of Mount Carmel, which drops in sheer cliffs into the Mediterranean. Carmel (which name means "garden park") was known for its greenery and bright flowers and heavy forests. The ridge of Carmel runs back southeasterly from the sea, and hence the maritime plains stretching south of Carmel widens quickly till it reaches its greatest width in southern Palestine, Philistia. It is called "Plain of Sharon". See it on the full-color physical map of Palestine?

No one name designates the mountain range that bounds the coastal plain on the east, but different sections of it bear different names. The northernmost part is Lebanon, which towers skyward more than 10,000 feet. It is snowcapped most of the year, and was noted for its fine forests of cedar. South of Lebanon the range is known as Mount Naphtali. Below this section it is broken up by a valley commonly called Esdraelon outside the Bible. In Scripture the eastern end of the valley is called the valley of Jezreel, whereas its western part is the fertile valley of Megiddo, through which the river Kishon flows northwestward to finally empty into the Mediterranean. Below this intersecting valley the range is known as Mount Ephraim or mountains of Israel, as far south as Bethel and Ramah. Thence it is called the mountains of Judah.

The mountains of Judah and Ephraim are composed mainly of porous rock. For this reason the winter rains readily filter down to a great depth, leaving the highlands dry throughout the summer months. The waters finally reach a waterproof layer and run along it to reappear as springs along the western side of Jordan valley and the western bank of the Dead sea, some even emptying into the Dead sea underground. West of the mountain range these waters emerge as springs along the eastern part of the long

seacoast lowlands, though some of the water finds its way to the Mediterranean underground. Strangely, some springs gushed up at or near the very crest of the highlands of Palestine, such as those surrounding Jerusalem and Hebron. Where water is, there is greenness. For this reason the mountains of Judah and Ephraim are spotted with little green valleys among rounded, barren gray hills. But these hills have not always been barren rock: in ancient times the natives terraced the hills to conserve the precious earth and not allow it to be washed away by torrential winter showers. Conquerors have destroyed the terraces or let them fall into disrepair, with the result that what was once fertile land and even forests is now a jumble of bald rock.

Between the mountains of Judah and Ephraim and the coastal lowlands or plains is a region of spurs divided from one another by small valleys. These foothills that form the transition from the mountains to the plains is called shephelah in the Hebrew Bible. Shephelah is sometimes translated "plain", sometimes "vale", and sometimes "valley". It was a region suited to the raising of cattle and flocks. Olive trees were to be found there, and sycamore trees grew in abundance. Swinging round to the south of the mountains of Judah, there we find the country flattening out into the arid plateau of Sinai, though to the east the range continues along the eastern edge of the peninsula of Sinai. This region of mountains, hills and plains between the shephelah and mountains of Judah on the one hand and the peninsula of Sinai on the other, and running from the Mediterranean to the Dead sea, is called negeb in the Hebrew Bible. Negeb means "dry; parched". Here man and beast rely on wells for water, not springs. Part is cultivable and part is desert. At its lower tip and just about where the negeb meets the desert proper is the fertile oasis formed by the springs of Kadesh-barnea. In the rainy season even in the desert the canyon-like river beds fill with rushing water, whereas in summer they are dry and hot.

Now let your eye run northward again up to the snowy

heights of majestic Lebanon mountains, and then shift your gaze a little to the east and let it come to rest in that green valley snuggled down in between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges. It may be narrow, but that rift valley begins near Antioch in the north and runs south down through the Promised Land and keeps going till it reaches the Red sea, which forms a part of it. Beneath towering Lebanon you can see the Orontes river flowing north; lower your gaze a little and you will see the southbound Litani (Leontes) river. Then around the base of Mount Hermon note the sources of the Jordan river, which, after it passes the waters of Merom and just before it hits the sea of Galilee, drops below sea level. The rift valley continues below sea level till it reaches the middle of Edom. The lowest part is the Dead sea, whose surface is 1,289 feet below the surface of the Mediterranean.

Along each side of the Jordan river is a ribbon of thickets, 200 yards to a mile in width. In the spring the swollen Jordan floods this jungle area. The main floor of the Jordan valley is much higher than this jungle depression, as much as 150 feet higher. The main valley floor is now dry and arid, but in Bible times it was irrigated and very productive. In the Bible that part of the rift valley that lies between the sea of Galilee and the Red sea is called the Arabah. The Arabah north of the Dead sea (Jordan valley) is from two to fourteen miles wide. And do you see that barren-looking stretch of rough country between the Dead sea and the crest of the mountains of Judah? Well, that is the desolate spot where Christ Jesus fasted for forty days and resisted the special temptations of Satan the Devil.

Now once more let your eye travel northward on the physical map of Palestine and make another shift of gaze to the east, this time to note the Anti-Lebanon range and Mount Hermon. Hermon, incidentally, is probably the "high mountain" upon which the transfiguration took place. Then note the general rise of the country all along the eastern edge of the long rift valley, specially marked between the

sea of Galilee and the Dead sea. Throughout the length of Palestine this eastern country rises up to form a desert plateau. From Gilead south was not included in the boundaries of the Promised Land, but it was settled by Israelites.