The eastern shore of the Mediterranean runs in nearly a straight line from Egypt to Asia Minor, and of this line the seaboard of Palestine fjrms about one third to- wards, not at, its southern end; Gaza being 50 miles distant from Egypt, while the mouth of the Litany is 250 from Asia Minor. Palestine occupies the whole breadth of the habitable land between the Mediterra- nean and the Arabian desert. Its boundaries on three sides are therefore natural, and may be said to be im- passable— on the west the sea, and on the south and east the desert; not, however, a desert of sand, nor a desert altogether barren, but rather a bleak, dry region, with a thin, flinty soil, yielding some tolerable pasture in spring, though almost bare as a rock in summer and autumn. Nature thus prevented the extension of the Israelitish territory in these directions, and likewise prevented the close approach of any settled nation ; but it left free scope for flocks and herds, and a noble field for the training of an active, hardy race of shepherd warriors, such as David so often led to victory.
On the south-east, Palestine bordered on Edom ; but the Dead Sea, the deep valley of the Arabah, and the rugged Wilderness of Judaja, formed natural barriers which prevented all close intercourse. Hostile armies found it difficult to pass them, and a few resolute men could guard the defiles. On the northern border lay the countries of Damascus and Phoenicia, and inter- course with these had a serious effect on the northern tribes. The distinction between Jew and Gentile soon became less sharply defined there than elsewhere. The former lost much of their exclusiveness, and their faith lost proportionably in purity. Idolatry was easily es- tablished in the chief places of the northern kingdom, and the borrowed Baalim of Pha-nicia became in time the popular deities of the land (1 Kings xviii). This fact of itself shows how wise was that providential ar- rangement which located the people of God in an iso- lated land, and prevented, by the barriers of nature, any close intercourse with those irrational systems, and bar- barous and often obscene rites, which, under the name of religion, prevailed among the nations of the world.
III. Names. — 1. Palestine. — In the A. Y. of the Bible, as seen above, this Avord occurs only in Joel iii, 4 (nuba mb^bj; Sept. TaXCKala a\\o(pv\wv, Vulg. terminus Pal(csihinoruni) : " What have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine?" Here the name is confined to Philistia. In three pas- sages (Exod. XV, 14; Isa. xiv, 29, 31) we have the Latin form Paleestina; but the meaning is the same, and hence the Sept. renders it in one case •iivXiaTiti/.i, and in the others d\\6(pv\oi.
The Hebrew word TUbs probably comes from the Ethiopic root fdasa, "to wander," or "emigrate," and hence nu:bs will signify "the nation of emigrants"— the Philistines (q. v.) having emigrated from Africa (see Reland, Pahest. p. 73 sq.). The people gave their name to the territory in which they settled on the south-west coast of I'alestine. In this sense also Jose- phus uses the Greek equivalent naXaarrivT] (Ant. i, 6, 2; ii, 15, 3; vi, 1, 1; xiii, 5, 10). But it would seem that even before his time the Greek name began to be employed in a more extended signification. Herodotus states that all the country from Phoenicia to Egypt is
PALESTINE
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PALESTINE
called Palestine (vii, 89) ; and he calls the Jews " Syr- ians of Palestine" (iii, 5, 91). An inscription of Iva- lush, king of Assyria (probably the Pul of Scriptnre), as deciphered by Sir H. Eawlinson, names "Palaztu on the Western Sea," and distinguishes it from Tyre, Da- mascus, Samaria, and Edom (Kawlinson, Herod, i, 4G7). In the same restricted sense it was probably employed — if employed at all — by the ancient Egyptians, in whose records at KJirnak the name Pidusutu has been deciphered in close connection with that of the Shairu- tana or Sharu, possibly the Sidonians or Syrians (Birch, doubtfully, in Layard, Nineveh, ii, 407, note). The ex- tension of the name doubtless arose from the fact that when the Greeks began to hold commercial intercourse with Phffinicia and south-western Asia, they found the coast from Phoenicia to Egypt in possession of the Phi- listines; and consequently they applied the name Pa- hestina loosely to the whole coimtry reaching from the sea to the desert. Josephus uses it in this sense in a few instances (.4?;^ i, 6, 4; viii, 10, 3; Aj). i, 22); and Philo says, " The country of the Sodomites was a district of the land of Canaan, which the Syrians afterwards called Palestine" (De Abraham, xxvi ; comp. Vita Mosis, xxix). The rabbins also gave the name Palestine to all the country occupied by the Jews (Reland, p. 38 sq.). Dion Cassius states that " anciently the whole country lying between Phoenicia and Egypt was called Pales- tine. It had also another adopted name, Judcea" {Hist. xxxvii). From this time onward Palestine was the name most usually given to the land of Israel ; in some cases it was confined to the country west of the Jordan, but in others it embraced the eastern provinces (see Keland, and authorities quoted by him, p. 39 sq.). By early Christian writers the word was generally, though not uniformly, employed in this sense. Thus Jerome, in one passage : " Terra Judaja, qute nunc appellatur Pala3stina" (ad Ezech. xxvii) ; but in another, " Philis- tiim qui nunc Paltestini vocantur" (in Am. i, 6; comp. Isa. xiv, 29). Chrysostom usually calls the Land of Israel Palestine (Reland, p. 40). All ancient writers, therefore, did not use the name in the same sense — some applying it to the whole country of the Jews, some restricting it to Philistia (Theodoret, ad Ps. lix; Reland, /. c). Consequently, when the name Palestine occurs in classic and early Christian writers, the student of geography will require carefully to examine tlie con- text, that he may ascertain whether it is applied to Philistia alone, or to all the land of Israel.