JUDAEA
1046
JUDAH
X, 1). After the death of Herod, however, the Jiulrea tJ which his son Archelaus succeeded was only the southern province so caUed (Matt, ii, 22), which after- wards became a Koman province dependent on S>T-ia and governed by procurators, and this was its condition during our Lord's ministry (see Nohrbor, Judtea provin- cia Romanorum, Upsal. 1822). It was afterwards for a time partlv imder the dominion of Herod Agrippa the elder (Acts xii, 1-19), but on his death it reverted to its former condition under the Romans. See Smith's Diet, of Class. Geof/. s. v.
It is only Judaea, in the provincial sense, that requires 6ur present notice, the country at large being described in the article Palestine. In this sense, however, it was much more extensive than the domain of the tribe of Judah, even more so than the kingdom of the same name. There are no materials for describing its limits with precision, but it included the ancient territories of Judah, Benjamin, Dan, Simeon, and part of Ephraim. It is, iiDwever, not correct to describe Idumaea as not anciently belonging to Judah. The Idumcsa of later times, or that which belonged to Juda?a, was the south- ern part of the ancient Judah, into which the Idumteans liad intruded during the exile, and the annexation of which to Judaea only restored what had anciently be- longed to it.
The name Judtea occurs among the list of nations represented at the paschal outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Acts ii, 0), where some have preferred the various read- ings India or Idumcea (see KuiniJl, ad loc), and even Junia ('loDi'iai', Schulthess, De charismat. i, 145), a place in Armenia, with various other conjectural emen- dations (sec Bowyer's Conjectures on the N. T. ad loc), all alike mmecessary (see Hackett, Alford, ad loc).
In the Rabbinical writings, Judtea, as a division of Palestine, is frequently called "the south," or "the south country," to distinguish it from GaUlee, which was caU- ed " the north" (Lightfoot, Chorog. Cent. xii). The dis- tinction of the tribe of Judah into " the Mountain," " the Plain," and " the Vale," which we meet with in the Old Testament (Numb, xiii, 30), was preserved un- der the more extended denomination of Judaea (for the more specific divisions in Josh, xv, 21-G3, see Keil's Comment, ad loc. ; Schwarz, Palest, p. 93-122). The Mountain, or hill-country of Judaea (Josh, xxi, 11 ; Luke i, 39), was that " broad back of mountains," as Lightfoot
as we are unacquainted with the site of Annath, other- wise Borceros, which he says lay on the boundary-line between Judaea and Samaria. The mere fact that Jose- phus makes Jerusalem the centre of the land seems to prove that the province did not extend so far to the south as the ancient kingdom of the same name. As the southern boundary of Judaea was also that of the whole country, it is oul\^ necessary to remark that Jose- phus places the southern boundary of the Judwa of the time of Christ at a village called Jardau, on the confines of Arabia Petrtea. No place of this name has been found, and the indication is very indistinct, from the fact that aU the country which lay beyond the Idumrea of those times was then called Arabia. In fixing this boundary, Josephus regards Iduma^a as part of Judaea, for he immediately after reckons that as one of the eleven districts into which Judaea was divided. Most of these districts were denominated, like our counties, from the chief towns. They were, 1. Jerusalem ; 2. Gophna; 3. Acrabatta; 4. Thumna; 5. Lydda; 6. Era- maus; 7. Pella; 8. Idumaea; 9. Engaddi; 10. Herodium; and, 11. Jericho.
Judiea is, as the above intimations would suggest, a country full of hills and valleys. The hiUs are gener- ally separated from one another by valleys and torrents, and are, for the most part, of moderate height, uneven, and seldom of any regular figure. The rock of which they are composed is easily converted into soil, which being arrested by the terraces when washed down by the rains, renders the hills cultivable in a series of long, narrow gardens, formed by these terraces from the base upwards. In this manner the hills were in ancient times cultivated most industriously, and enriched and beautified with the fig-tree, the olive-tree, and the vine ; and it is thus that the scanty cultivation which still subsists is now carried on. But*^vhen the inhabitants were rooted out, and the culture neglected, the terraces fell to decay, and the soil which had been collected in them was washed down into the valleys, leaving only the arid rock, naked and desolate. This is the general character of the scenery ; but in some parts the hills are beautifully wooded, and in others the appUcation of the ancient mode of cultivation still suggests to the travel- ler how rich the country once was and might be again, and how beautiful the prospects which it offered. As, however, much of this was the result of cultivation, the
calls it (Chororj. Cent, xi), which fills the centre of the | country was probably anciently, as at present, natia-all;/ country from Hebron northward to beyond Jerusalem j less fertile than either Samaria or Galilee. The present (for Luke i, 39, sec Ji:ttah). The Plain was the low country towards the sea-coast, and seems to have in- cluded not only the broad plain which extends between the sea and the hill-country, but the lower parts of the hilly region itself in that "direction. Thus the Rab- bins allege that from Beth-horon to the sea is one region (Talmud Hieros. SheUith, ix, 2). The Vale is defined by t lie Rabbins as extending from Engedi to Jericho (Lightfoot, Panerf/on, § 2) ; from which, and other indi- cations, it seems to have included such parts of the Ghor, or great plain of the Jordan, as lay within the tcrritorj' of Judica. This appropriation of the terms is far prefer- able to that of some writers, such as Lightfoot, who sup- pose "the Plain" to be the broad valley of the Jordan, and " tlie Valley" to be the lower valley of the same river. Tliat which is called the Wilderness of Judcea was the wil<l and inhospitable region lying eastward of Jerusalem, in tlie direction of the Jordan and Dead Sea (Isa. xl, 3 ; :\Latt. iii, 1 ; Luke i, 80 ; iii, 2-4). In the N. T.only the Ilii/hlands and the Desert of Juda>a are dis- tniguished. We may have some notion of the extent northward which Judaa had obtained, from Jose]ihus calling Jenisalem the centre oC the country ( War, iii, 3,5), wliich is remarkable, seeing that Jerusalem was originally in the northernmost border of the tribe of Ju- dah. In fact, he describes the breadth of the country as extending from the Jordan to Joppa, wViich shoAvs that this city was in Judaa. How much further to the north the boundary lay we cannot know with precision.