NAPHTALI
and the apricot are general. The vine is cultivated on many asunny slope, and wide reaches of plough- land in the valleys yield fine crops of wheat and barley. The villages which dot the landscape give evidence of all the comfort and prosperity possible under the present government. Jebel Jermuk, cut off from the Safed hills y the tremendous gorge of Wady Leimin, is the highest mountain in Western Palestine, reaching a height of nearly 4000 ft. To Naphtali also belonged the plain of Ijon, now Merj A'‘yiin, in the valley west of Hermon, and the upper valley of the Jordan, from the springs to the Sea of Galilee, both containing much excellent arable and pasture land. As if this were not enough for one whom the Lord blessed with such goodwill (Driver, Deut. p. 413), to Naphtali were assigned the broad fertile terraces by which the land lets itself down from Tabor to the Sea of Galilee, the fruitful level stretches before Hattin, and the Plain of Gennesaret, a tract of unequalled richness and luxuriance on the north-west shore of the lake. To this, doubtless, allusion is made in Dt 33%, where ΟΣ; should be rendered ‘sea,’ not ‘ west,’ and is certainly the Sea of Galilee. The region has always been famous for its productiveness, ‘ inso- much that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation’ (Jos. BJ π1. iii. 2). It was one of the districts from which Solomon drew provisions,
resided over for this purpose by the king’s son-in- aw Ahimaaz (1K 4%). ‘To the inhabitants of such a land the more luxuriant vegetation of the hot lands on either side spread its temptations in vain .. . It is luxury where luxury cannot soften. On these broad heights, open to the sunshine and the breeze, life is free and exhilarating.
“‘Naphtali is a hind let loose.”
This beautiful figure (Gn 4951) fully expresses the feelings which are bred by the health, the spacious- ness, thehigh freedom, an glomus outlook of Upper Galilee’ (7GHL? 420). The reading, ‘ Naphtali is a stretched out, i.e. slender, terebinth,’ adopted by Ewald (Hist. of Israel, tr. ii. 291), Dillmann (Genesis, ii. 472), and others in preference to MT, is rejected by Delitzsch (Genesis in loc.), with apparently good reason. The figure of a slender tree seems to suit neither the territory nor its in- habitants. The latter appear to have been from the first a robust and numerous people; while neither in shape, nor in the character of its pro- ducts, is the land at all open to such a description (HGHL? 420, note). Delitzsch further points out that my, in the meaning of stretched, slender, is uncorroborated and linguistically improbable. MT is supported by the Targg. and Sam., and is alto- gether appropriate to people nurtured amid the freedom of the mountains. ‘ He who giveth goodly words’ seems to mark out Naphtali as possessing, in special measure, the gift of eloquence. Of this, however, there is no extant evidence.
His position as a border tribe exposed Naphtali to constant peril from marauding bands, and in- roads of hostile neighbours. In conflict with those who sought the spoils of his fair territory, no doubt, was developed that alert, eager, fearless, warlike spirit, which shoneso conspicuously under the leader- ship of Barak and Deborah (Jg 515), and which made the men of these uplands so formidable in later days. A thousand captains and a contingent of 37,000 men ‘with shield and spear’ were sent to David at Hebron (1 Ch 12%). In Tiglath-pileser’s first raid against Pekah, Naphtali fell into the hands of Assyria, and the people were taken inte captivity (2K 15%; ef. 1 Ch 5%, Is 91). The heroic zeal and bravery of the habitants of this region in the war of independence was worthy of the sTeatest traditions of the past (see GALILEE).
osephus, whose knowledge was intimate, testifies
NAPHTUHIM
NARD
that they were ‘inured to war from their infancy,’ ‘nor hath the country ever been destitute of men of courage’ (BJ 11. iii. 2). Much of our Lord’s ministry was fulfilled within the borders of Naph- tali; and of those chosen to be His companions and witnesses, the chief were natives of this soil. There are but two towns of any consequence in the territory of Naphtali to-day, both ‘holy cities’ of the Jews: Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, with about 5000 inhabitants, where the tombs of Maimonides, Rabbi Akiba, and other great ones are shown, the ruins of the ancient oy stretching 2 miles to the south; and Safed, wit over 20,000 inhabitants, crowning the mountain north of the sea, dominated by the ‘castle hill.’ The castle itself, dating from Crusading times, was finally wrecked in the earthquake of 1837, which wrought such havoe both in Safed and in Tiberias. At DMeirén, a few miles north-west of Safed, are the ruins of an ancient synagogue, and the tombs
of Hillel and Simeon Bar Yochai. This is a popu- lar Jewish place of pilgrimage. Of the villages representing ancient cities, er-Rameh is perhaps
the most prosperous ; and on the ridge north of er- Rameh stands the hamlet of el-Bukev‘a, the highest lace of human habitation in Palestine, whose ΤΩΝ inhabitants claim to have held it in un- broken possession since Joshua’s conquest.
Naphtali, Mount (bpp) 7, ἐν τῷ ὄρει τῷ Ned- Gadel, Jos 207) was the northmost of the parts into which the central range of Western Palestine was divided, named after the tribes that mainly occu- ied them—Mount Judah, Mount Ephraim, and