From all these points of view, Jerusalem had become a place of sinister prospects for Jesus. From the populace He had to expect the usual recei)tion given to all provincials, and if more powerful enemies should require their aid, thej' might be counted on for darker deeds. By the orthodox religionists He would be treated as a heretic, disloyal alike to the traditions of the past and the pressing needs of the hour. By the lati- tudinarian i>riests He must be regarded with the double antagonism of worldly men to .spiritual aspiration, and of ritual to spiritual realitj-. So Jerusalem came to be seen bj- Jesus under a death- cloud. Rome was free in her use of crucifixion for the better ordering of Eastern affairs, and Jesus must have seen many of His countrymen hanging on crosses beside village gates. So tiie certanity of the end would force it.><elf upon Him, and tlie siiadow of the cross fall ever more deepl}-. Toml)s of prophets were everywhere to be seen, and many of them were martyrs' tombs (Mt 23-'^). But it was
308
PALESTINE
PALM
round the walls of Jerusalem that such tombs were thickest, and for Him also Jerusalem was seen as the place for perishing in. From the far North He saw it so, saying at Csesarea Philippi that He must go to Jerusalem to be killed (16^^). The final journey, eager and yet deliberate, had death for its goal in the Holy City. The discijiles felt a horror in the thought of Jerusalem, as if the City of the Great King had changed to a shambles (Jn 11^). Thomas, more ready than the others to face the worst, boldly urged them to go on and die with Him (11^"). When He came near, and seeing the city realized its hopelessness, and felt the flood of old associations sweejD over Him, He wejjt over it (Lk 19^1). But He went on, nevertheless, when for Him Jerusalem meant Calvary.
It is true that, in the memory of the early Chiirch, Jerusalem was the place of rising again as well as the place of death, and of the New Evangel that had tlie city for its starting-point. Yet as far as the earthly life of Jesus is concerned, the associa- tions of Jerusalem are of almost unrelieved antagon- ism, sorrow, and shame. The modern aspect of the city seems to the imagination of lovers of Jesus profoundly symbolic. What the first eye-shot gives, as one sees it from Olivet, is this : a sharj) angle formed by the two valleys of Jehoshaphat and Hinnom ; steep banks rising from their bottoms to the walls, Avhich they overlap in an irregular and wavy line ; within the walls, glancing back from the angle which they form above the junction of the valleys, the eye runs up a gradually rising- expanse of close-packed building, which is con- tinued more .sparsely in the long rolling slope beyond, to the ridge of Scopus in the north, and to the distant sweep of long level mountain-line to the Avest. It is as if the wiiole city had slid down and been caught by that great angle of wall just before it precipitated itself into the gorges.
These gorges themselves are part and parcel of the city, and they stand for the overflow of her sad and desolate spirit. Their sides are banks of rubbish — the wreckage and debris of a score of sieges, the accumulation of three thousand years. One looks from the lower pool of Siloam in the valley of Hinnom up a long dreary slope of dark grey rubbish, down which a horrible black stream of liquid filth trickles, tainting the air with its stench. Far above stands the wall, which in old days en- closed tiie pool. Here the city seems to have shrunk northwards, as if in some horror of con- science. The Field of Blood and the Hill of Evil Coimsel are just across the gorge to the south. The valleys are full of tombs.
The impression of this is overwhelming, and there is one point in the view which appears more than all else to embody and explain it. Right in front, as one looks from Olivet, is the line of the Temple wall, and it is broken by a double gate, built up with closely mortared masonry. That is the ancient 'Beautiful Gate' of the Temple, by whicli the scapegoat, bearing tlie nation's sins, was led forth to the wilderness. It was built up because of a Jewish tradition that Messiah would return and enter the city by it. So Jerusalem has indeed built up the exit for her sins and the entrance for her Saviour. The land seems, as one travels over its desolate mountains and valleys, still inhabited by Jesus ; but He has forsaken Jerusalem.
Cf. also separate articles, such as Galilek, JuD/EA, Samaria, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Capernaum, Jordan, etc.
Literature.— Schiirer, H.TP, pasnm ; Hausrath, Hist, of NT Times—Times of Jesus ■ G. A. Smith, HGHL ; Sandav, Sacred Utes of the Gospels ; Dous:ht\-, Arabia Desert a ; Conder, Tent- Wnrk in Palestine ; Ramsav, The Edve.ation of Jesus ■ cf. also the present writer's book, The Holy Land (illustrated bv Mr. Fulleylove). jO„j^, KeLMAN.
PALM. — Palm trees, though frequently referred to in the OT, ar<i mentioned in connexion with the life of Christ only once : viz. in the account of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Jn 12'^). The English name (Lat. palma) is due to the similarity of the leaves of some kinds to the open hand. The term in Greek (applied only to a genus) is (polvi.^, which gave its name to a town in Crete (Ac 27'-). The word also means 'a Phojnician,' 'a purple colour,' and the fabulous phcenix. In Itev 7" it is used of the leaf (or so-called branch), which is usually called ^atov.