NAPHTALI
843
NAPIITALI
rich in noble and ever-varying prospects as any coun- try in the world ■ (ii, 407). As it is thus described by one of the few travellers who have crossed its mountains and descended into its ravines, so it was at the time of the Christian sera — " the soil," says Josephus ( \Va): iii, 3, 2), " universally rich and produc- tive ; full of plantations of trees of all sorts ; so fertile as to invite the most slothful to cultivate it."
The following is a list of all the localities in the tribe, with their probable identification :
Abel-beth-Maachrth. Town. A Ml el-Karub. ., , . J (See Abel-betu-Maa-
Abel-maim. do. | ^^^^^
Adamah, or Adami. do. Damiehf
Ahlab. do. El-Jish.
Ajiilon. do. Jalun.
Arbel. do. See Beth-aebel.
Azuoth-Tabor. do. IKuni-Hattinl'?
Baal-gad, or Baal-her-) •, (See Cxsauea-Puilip-
mon. / ■ \ PI.
Beth-anath. do. Ainata.
Beth-arbel. do. Irbid.
Beth-shemesh. do. Mejdel esh-Shems.
Caesarea-Philippi. do. Banias.
Capei-nauoi. do. Tell-Uuvit
Chinuereth, or Cin-) (Town. lAbn-iShusheh']1
ne..th, or Cinue-||Re.io„.| 3,, ^^,^^3^_^,
Chorazin. Town. Bir-Kerazehf
Dalnianutha. do. Ain el-Baridchf
Dan, or Dan-jaan. do. See Laisii.
Ediei. do. Tdl-Khiiraibehf
Eu-hazor. do. lTell-Hazur.2
Gennesareth Plain, {^'^l^;^- °' ^^^^
Gennesareth. Lake. Bahr-Tubariyeh. Hummath, or Ham-')
mou, or IIummoth-> Town. Hanimamf
dor. 3
Haroseth. do. Tuleil Girshf
Hazai'-enan. do. IHaabeyal ?
Hazor. do. Hazur.
Heleph. do. Beitliff
Hermou. Mount. Jebel es-Sheikh.
Horem. Town. Hurahf
Hukkoth. do. Yafcuk.
Ijon. do. Tell-Dibbin?
Iron. do. Khurbet-Yanm.
Jahneel. do. [El-Jantieh~\?
Jaiioah. do. Kulat Hiinin?
Knrtan. do. {.El-KatanahJ?
Kedesh, or Kishion. do. Kaclen.
Laish, or Leshem. do. Tell-Kadi?
Lakum. do. {^^Ca] ?• °^ ™^-^^" Magdnla, or Migdal-el. do. M-Mejd'el.
Nekeb. do. See Adami.
Rakkath. do. See IIammatu.
Raraah. do. Jiameh.
liehob. do. Deir Ruheihf
Shepham. do. |See^C.BSAKEA-PmLir-
Tiberias. do. Tubariijeh.
Zaanaini, or Zaauium. do. iAin Mellahah}1
Zedad. do. [ Jerfeirfa] ?
Ziddim, or Zer. do. Hattin ?
Ziphron. do. iKaiikaba'] ?
Three of the towns of Naphtali were allotted to the Gershonite Levites : Kadesh (already called Kedesh-in- Galilee), Hammoth-dor, and Kartan. Of these, the first was a city of refuge (Josh, xx, 7 ; xxi, 32). It should be noticed that in the list of fortified towns at Josh. xix, 35-38 onl}' sixteen cities are enumerated (or but thirteen if we join as one the names not connected by the conjunction), whereas the sum calls for nineteen. The difference is probably to be made up by including such of those mentioned in the preceding verses as lay within the territory of the tribe and had walls. The enumeration, like the rest in this and the adjoining chapters, is not exhaustive (see Keil, ad loc).
Naphtali, on account of its position, was in a great measure isolated from the Israelitish kingdoms. Yet it had its share in those incursions and molestations bj' the surrounding heathen which were the common lot of all the tribes (Judah perhaps alone excepted) during the first centuries after the conquest. One of these, apparently the severest struggle of all, fell with special violence on the north of the country, and the leader by whom the invasion was repelled — Barak
of Kedesh-Naphtali— was the one great hero whom Naphtali is recorded to have produced. How gigantic were the eiforts by which these heroic mountaineers saved their darling highlands from the swarms of Canaaiiites who followed Jabin and Sisera, and how grand the po- sition which they achieved in the eyes of the whole nation, may be gathered from the narrative of the war in Judg. iv, and still more from the expressions of the triumphal song in which Deborah, the prophetess of Ephraim, immortalized the victors and branded their reluctant countrymen with everlasting infamy. Gile'ad and Keuben lingered beyond the Jordan among their riocks ; Dan and Asher preferred the luxurious calm of their hot lowlands to the free air and fierce strife of the mountains ; Issachar, with characteristic sluggishness seems to have moved slowly if he moved at all; but Zebulun and Naphtali, on the summits of their native highlands, devoted themselves to death, even to an ex- travagant pitch of heroism and self-devotion (Judg. v, 18):
"Zebulun are a people that threw away their lives even unto death— And Naphtali, on the high places of the field."
Naphtali was one of Solomon's commissariat districts, under the charge of his son-in-law Ahimaaz ; who with liis wife Basmath resided in his presidency, aiid doubt- less enlivened that remote and rural locality by a min- iature of the court of his august father-in-law held at Safed or Kedesh, or wherever his residence may have been (I Kings iv, 15). Here he doubtless watched the progress of the unpromising new district presented to Solomon by Hiram — the twenty cities of Cabul, which seem to have been within the territory of Naphtali, perhaps the nucleus of the Galilee of later date. The ruler of the tribe (T^53) — a different dignity altogether from that of Ahimaaz — was, in the reign of David, Jerimoth ben-Azriel (1 Chron. xxvii, 19). In later times the Naphtalites appear to have resigned them- selves to the intercourse with the heathen which was the bane of the northern tribes in general, and of which there are already indications in Judg. i, 33; comp. Isa. ix, 1. The location by Jeroboam within their territory of the great sanctuary for the northern part of his king- dom must have given an impulse to their nationality, and for a time have revived the connection with their brethren nearer the centre. Nominally subject to Sa- maria, it was separated from it by the plain of Esdraelon, over which so often swept the devastating hordes of the " Children of the East," and the powerful armies of Syria. The usual route of the Syrian expeditions was along the east base of Hermon, and across the Jordan at Jacob's bridge. The Naphtalites in their mountain fastnesses thus generally escaped their devastations. But whenever the enemy marched through the valley of Coele-Syria, then Naphtali bore the first brunt of the on- set. In the reigns of Baasha, king of Israel, and Asa, king of Judah, this tribe was the first to suffer from the invasion of Benhadad, king of Syria, who "sent the cap- tains of the hosts which he had against the cities of Israel, and smote all Cinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali" (1 Kings xv, 20), especially "all its store cities" (2 Chron. xvi, 4). At length, in the reign of Pekah, king of Israel (cir. B.C. 730), Tiglath-pileser overran the whole of the north of Israel, swept off the population, and bore them away to Assyria (2 Kings XV, 29). It is perhaps worth while adding that Tobit belonged to Naphtali, for he tells us that " in the time of Euemessar (or Shalmaneser), king of the Assyrians, he was led captive out of Thisbe, which is at the right hand of that city which is called Kedesh of Naphtali, in Galilee, above Aser ;" that he came with his breth- ren to Nineveh, and that the iMost High gave him grace and favor before Enemessar, who made him piu:- veyor to the palace (Tobit i, 5 ; vii, 3).