II. The Boundaries of Palestine require to be defined with care and minuteness. IMuch confusion has arisen in Biblical geography from the way in which this sub- ject has been treated, and from the diversity of views which prevails. No two writers agree on all points. The accounts of ancient geographers — Greek, Roman, and Jewish — are unsatisfactory, and sometimes contra- dictory; and when we come down to more modern times we do not And much improvement. Some au- thors confound Palestine with " the Land of Promise," as mentioned in Genesis and Exodus, and with the land defined by Moses in the book of Numbers (Keland, Palcest. p. 113 sq. ; Cellarius, Geogr. ii, 464 sq. ; Hales, Anal, of Chronology, i, 413; Kitto, Physical Hist, of Pal. p. xxviii; Jahn, Biblical Antiquities ; Encyclop. Britan. art. Palestine, 8th etl.). Others confine the name to the territory west of the Jordan, and reaching from Dan to Beersheba. Even dean Stanley, usually so accurate and so careful in his geographical details, does not express his views with sufficient clearness on this point (^Sin, and Pal. p. Ill, 114).
1. Boundaries of the Land promised to Abraham. — The first promises made to Abraham were indefinite. A country was insured to him, but its limits were not stated. The Lord said to him at Shechem, " Unto thy seed will I give this land" (Gen. xii, 7); and again, on the heights of Bethel, after Lot had left him, " Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and west- ward ; for all the land wliich thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever" (xiii, 14, 15). It was a commanding spot, but still that view did not embrace one fourth of Palestine. At length, however, the boundaries were defined ; in general terms, it is true, but still with sufficient clearness to indicate the vast extent of territory promised to Abraham's descendants : "In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying. Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the ricer of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates''' (xv, 18). "The river of Egypt" was here probably the Nile. It should be observed that the Hebrew word is "iHS, river (Sept. iroTa(.ii>Q), and not PJ13, wady, or " torrent -bed," as in Numb, xxxiv, 5 (Sept. x^>l^"f'P"C^f where Wady cl-Arish seems to be meant (see Kalisch, Delitzsch, etc., ad loc). From the banks of the Nile, tlien, to the Euphrates, the country
promised to the patriarch extended. The covenant was renewed with the Israelites just after their depart- ure from Egypt, and the boundaries of the land were given with more fidness: "I will set thy bounds from the lied Sea even to the sea of the Philistines (tlie Mediterranean) ; and from the desert (of Sinai) unto the river" (Euphrates ; "inifTI" ; Sept. 'iwQ rov fiiya- \ov TToraj^iov Eufparov; Exod. xxiii, 81).
But this great territory was promised upon certain specific conditions. The people were, on their part, to be faithful to God (ver. 22, 23). They did not fulfil tliese conditions, and therefore the whole land was not given to them (see Josh, xxiii, 13-lG ; Judg. ii, 20-23). But though the whole land was never occupied by the Israelites, there was a near approach to the possession of it, or the exercise of sovereignty over it, in the days of David, of whom it is recorded : " David smote also Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he v)ent to recover his border at the river Euphrates'" (2 Sam. viii, 3). That warlike monarch conquered the king- doms of Ilamath, Zobah, Damascus, Moab, Ammon, Amalek, Philistia, and Edom (ver. 5-14) — the whole country, in fact, from the border of Egypt to the river Euphrates, and from the Arabian desert to the Mediter- ranean. This was the land given in covenant promise to Abraham ; but it was never included under the name Palestine.
2. The land described by Moses in Numb, xxxiv, 1-12 is much more limited in extent than that promised to Abraham. He calls it " the Land of Canaan — the land that shall fall unto you for an inheritance" (ver. 2). Its boundaries are defined with great precision. On the south, the border reached from Kadesh-barnea in the Arabah, on the confines of Edom, across the " wilder- ness of wandering," to the torrent of Egypt, doubtless that now known as Wady el-Arish. The word is here 5n3, torrent, and not "Iil3, river. This important dis- tinction has been overlooked by Dr. Keith and others {Land of Israel, p. 85 sq. ; Bochart, Opera, iii, 764; Shaw, Travels, ii, 45 sq.). The Great Sea was its west- ern border. The northern is thus defined : " And this shall be j'our north border: from the great sea ye shall point out for you Mount Hor ; from Mount Hor ye shall point out your border unto the entrance of Hamath ; and the goings forth of the border shall be to Zedad : and the border shall go on to Ziphron, and the goings out of it shall be at Hazar-enan" (ver. 7-9). The interpretation of this passage has given rise to much controversy. Dr. Keith argues with considerable force and learning that Mount Hor, or, as it is in the Hebrew, Hor ha-Har ("il ^iin), is Mount Casius, and that the chasm of the Orontes at Antioch is "the entrance of Hamath" (see Keith's Land of Israel, p. 92-105). Dr. Kitto, on the other liand, following Reland {Palcest. p. 118 sq.), Bo- chart {Opera, i, 307), and Cellarius {Geogr. ii, 464 sq.), locates this northern border-line near tlie parallel of Sidon, making some peak of southern Lebanon Mount Hor, and the lower extremity of the valley of Ca?le- Syria the "entrance of Hamath." See Hor, Mount. According to Dr. Porter, however, the "entrance of Hamath" is the entrance from the Great Sea, from the west; and he states that to this day natives sometimes call the opening between the northern end of the Leba- non range and that of Bargylus Bab Hamah, "Tlie door of Hamath." Van de Velde appears to make the northern end of Coele-Syria, where that valley opens upon the plain of Hamath, " the entrance of Hamath" {Travels, ii, 470); and Stanley adopts the same view {Sin. and Pal. p. 399). See Hajiatii.