(though Canaan was bounded on the south also by the same great desert which reached to the Red Sea), we have in this promise a territory 600 miles long by an average of about 180 broad, making an area of about 100,000 square miles, or ten times as much as the Jews ever could claim, and nearly one-half of it uninhabitable. So, then, the promise was never fulfilled, for the Israelites were confined to a very small central portion of their land of promise, and whether they occupied 3000 or 12,000 square miles in the period of their greatest power, the fact is not to be disputed that their country was a very small one.
“Lamartine describes the journey from Bethany to Jericho as singularly toilsome and melancholy—neither houses nor cultivation, mountains without a shrub, immense rocks split by time, pinnacles tinged with colors like those of an extinct volcano. ‘From the summit of these hills, as far as the eye can reach, we see only black chains, conical or broken peaks, a boundless labyrinth of passes rent through the mountains, and those ravines lying in perfect and perpetual stillness, without a stream, without a wild animal, without even a flower, the relics of a convulsed land, with waves of stone’ (vol. ii., p. 146).”
But lest it may be thought that these dismal features are due to modern degeneracy, let us take the testimony of an early Christian Father, St. Jerome, who lived a long time in Bethlehem, four miles south of Jerusalem. In the year 414 he wrote to Dardanus thus: “I beg of those who assert that the Jewish people after coming out of Egypt took possession of this country (which to us, by the passion and resurrection of our Saviour, has become truly the land of promise), to show us what this people possessed. Their whole dominions extended only from Dan to Beersheba, hardly 160 Roman miles in length (147 geographical miles). The Scriptures give no more to David and Solomon, except what they acquired by alliance after conquest.... I am ashamed to say what is the breadth of the land of promise, lest I should thereby give the pagans occasion to blaspheme. It is but 47 miles (42 geographical miles) from Joppa to our little town of Bethlehem, beyond which all is a frightful desert” (vol. ii., p. 605).
Elsewhere he describes the country as the “refuse and rubbish of nature.” He says that “from Jerusalem to Bethlehem there is nothing but stones, and in the summer the inhabitants can scarcely get water to drink.”
“In the year 1847, Lieut. Lynch of the U. S. Navy was sent to explore the river Jordan and the Dead Sea. He and his party with great difficulty crossed the country from Acre to the Lake of Tiberias, with trucks drawn by camels. The only roads from time immemorial were mule-paths. Frequent détours had to be made, and they were compelled actually to make some portions of their road. Even then the last declivity could not be overcome until all hands turned out and hauled the boats and baggage down the steep places; and many times it seemed as if, like the ancient herd of swine, they would all rush precipitately into the sea. Over three days were required to make the journey, which in a straight line would be only twenty-seven miles. For the first few miles they passed over a pretty fertile plain, but this was the ancient Phœnician country, which the Jews never conquered. The rest of the route was mountainous and rocky, with not a tree visible nor a house outside the little walled villages (pp. 135 to 152).
“The ancient Sea of Galilee has a prominent place in Jewish geography and commerce, yet on this insignificant body of water, twelve miles long by seven wide, all the commerce of the Jews was carried on, except when they had the use of a port on the Red Sea.
“In a book entitled The Holy Land, Syria, etc., by David Roberts, R. A. (London, 1855), the valley of the Jordan is thus described:
“‘A large portion of the valley of the Jordan has been from the earliest time almost a desert. But in the northern part the great number of rivulets which descend from the mountains on both sides produce in many places a luxuriant growth of wild herbage. So too in the southern part, where similar rivulets exist, as around Jericho, there is even an exuberant fertility; but those rivulets seldom reach the Jordan and have no effect on the middle of the Ghor. The mountains on each side are rugged and desolate, the western cliffs overhanging the valley at an elevation of 1000 or 1200 feet, while the eastern mountains fall back in ranges of from 2000 to 2500 feet.’”
What was the size of ancient Jerusalem? We know pretty nearly what it is now and how many inhabitants it contains. It is three-quarters of a mile long by half a mile wide, and its population is not more than ,500 (Biblical Researches, vol i., p. 421), a large proportion of whom are drawn thither by the renowned sanctity of the place. Dr. Robinson measured the wall of the city, and found it to be only 12,978 feet in circumference, or nearly two and a half miles (vol. i., p. 268).
“In a book entitled An Essay on the Ancient Topography of Jerusalem, by James Fergusson (London, 1847), a diagram is given of the walls of ancient and modern Jerusalem, from which it appears that the greatest length of the city was at no time more than 6000 feet, or a little more than a mile, and its greatest width about three-quarters of a mile; while the real Jerusalem of old was but a little more than a quarter that size.
“With these measurements Mr. Fergusson undertakes to estimate the probable population of the ancient city, as follows:
“‘If we allow the inhabitants of the first-named cities fifty yards to each individual, and that one-half of the new city was inhabited at the rate of one person to each one hundred yards, this will give a permanent population of 23,000 souls. If, on the other hand, we allow only thirty-three yards to each of the old cities, and admit that the whole of the new was as densely populated as London, or allowing one hundred yards to each inhabitant, we obtain 37,000 souls for the whole; which I do not think it at all probable that Jerusalem ever could have contained as a permanent population.’ “‘In another part of the book (p. 47) he says:
“If we were to trust Josephus, he would have us believe that Jerusalem contained at one time, or could contain, two and a half or three millions of souls, and that at the siege of Titus 1,100,000 perished by famine and the sword, 97,000 were taken captive, and 40,000 allowed by Titus to go free.
“In order to show the gross exaggeration of these numbers, he cites the fact that the army of Titus did not exceed, altogether, 30,000, and that Josephus himself enumerates the fighting-men of the city at 23,400, which would give a population something under 100,000. But even this he believes to be an exaggeration. For, says he,
“‘In all the sallies it cannot be discovered that at any time the Jews could bring into the field 10,000 men, if so many.... Titus enclosed the city with a line four and a half miles in extent, which, with his small army, was so weak a disposition that a small body of the Jews could easily have broken through it; but they never seem to have had numbers sufficient to be able to attempt it.’
“The author guesses that the Jews might have mustered at the beginning of the siege about 10,000 men, and that the city might have contained altogether about 40,000 inhabitants, permanent and transient, in a space which in no other city in the world could accommodate 30,000 souls. But the wall of Agrippa was built, as the same author states, twelve or thirteen years after the Crucifixion; hence prior to that time the area of Jerusalem was only 756,000 yards, and it was capable of containing only 23,000 inhabitants at most, but probably never did contain more than 15,000.
“Allowing to Jerusalem, in the period of the greatest prosperity of the Jews, a population of even 20,000, is it at all probable that the whole country could have contained anything like even the lowest estimate to be gathered from the Scripture record? In 1 Chron. 21: 5, 6 we read that the number of ‘men that drew the sword of Israel and Judah amounted to 1,570,000, not counting the tribes of Levi and Benjamin. In 2 Sam. 24: 9, the number given at the same census is 1,300,000, and no omission is mentioned. Assuming the larger number to be correct, and adding only one-eighth for the two tribes of Levi and Benjamin, which may have been the smallest, we have 1,766,000 fighting-men. This would give, at the rate of one fighting-man to four inhabitants, a total population of over 7,000,000 souls. But if we adopt a more reasonable ratio, of one to six, we have a population of over 10,500,000 souls. And then we omit the aliens. These numbered
