III. Scripture Xotices. — 1. As to the industrial and domestic uses of the palm, it is well known that they are very numerous; but there is no clear allusion to them in the Bible. That the ancient Orientals, how- ever, made use of wine and honey obtained from the palm-tree is evident from Herodotus (i, 193; ii, 86), Strabo (xvi, ch. xiv, ed. Kram.), and Pliny (^Xat. Hist. xiii, 4). It is indeed possible that the honey mentioned in some places may be palm-sugar. (In 2 Cbron. xxxi, 5 the margin has "dates.")
2. The following places (in Smith's Diet, of the Bi- ble) maj- be enumerated from the Bible as having some connection with the palm-tree, either in the derivation of the name, or in the mention of the tree as growing on the spot.
(1.) At ELTjr, one of the stations of the Israelites be- tween Egypt and Sinai, it is exi)ressly stated that there were " twelve wells (fountains) of water, and threescore and ten palm-trees" (Exod. xv, 27; Numb, xxxiii, 9). The word " fountains" of the latter passage is more cor- rect than the " wells" of the former : it is more in har- mony, too, with the habits of the tree; for, as Theo- phrastus sa}-s (/. c), the palm fTri^ijru paWov to va- fxarialov vSojp. There are still palm-trees and foun- tains in Wady Ghurundel, which is generally identified with Elim (Robinson, Bib. Pes. i, 69).
(2.) Next, it should be observed that Elath (Deut. ii, 8 ; 1 Kings ix, 26 ; 2 Kings xiv, 22 ; xvi, 6 ; 2 Chron. viii, 17 ; xxvi, 2) is another plural form of the same word, and may likewise mean " the palm-trees." See Prof. Stanley's remarks (Sin. and Pal. p. 20, 84, 519), and compare Eeland {Palcest. p. 930). This place was in Edom (probably Akaba'}; and we are reminded here of the "Iiiuma;a; palmar" of Virgil {Georg. iii, 12) and Martial (x, 50).
(3.) No place in Scripture is so closely associated with the subject before us as Jericho. Its rich palm-groves are coimected with two very different periods — with that of Moses and Joshua on the one hand, and that of the evangelists on the other. As to the former, the mention of "Jericho, the city of palm-trees" (Deut. xxxiv, 3), gives a peculiar vividness to the Lawgiver's last view from Pisgah ; and even after the narrative of the conquest we have the children of the Kenite, !Mo- scs's father-in-law, again associated with "the city of palm-trees" (Judg. i, 16). So Jericho is dcscril)cd in the account of the ]\Ioabitish invasion after tlie death of Othniel (Judg. iii, 13) ; and, long after, we find tlio .same phrase ajiplied to it in the reign of Ahaz (2 Chron. xxviii, 15). What the extent of these palm-groves
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may have been in the desolate period of Jericho we cannot tell ; but they were renowned in the time of the Gospels and Josephus. The Jewish historian mentions the luxuriance of these trees again and again ; not only in allusion to the time of Moses (.1 «^ iv, (!, 1), but in the account of the Roman campaign under Pompey (id. xiv, 4, 1 ; War; i, 0, G), the proceedings of Antony and Cleopatra (Ant. xv, 4, 2), and the war of Vespasian (War, iv, 8, 2, 3). Herod the Great did much for Jer- icho, and took great interest in its palm-groves. Hence Horace's " Herodis palmeta pinguia" (Zs};. ii, 2, 184), which seems almost to have been a proverbial expres- sion. Nor is this the only heathen testimony to the same fact. Strabo describes this immediate neighbor- hood as TrXtovdZov t(;7 (poiviKi, iizi iujkoq aTabiuiv tKa- t6v (xvi, 763), and Pliny says, " Hiericuntem palmetis consitam" (Hist. Nat. v, 14), and adds elsewhere that, while palm-trees grow well in other parts of Juda?a, "Hiericunte maxime" (xiii, 4). See also Galen, Be Aliment, faciilt. ii, and Justin, xxxvi, 3. Shaw {Trav. p. 371 fol.) speaks of several of these trees still remain- ing at Jericho in his time, but later travellers have seen but slight vestiges of them.
(4.) The name of Hazezon-Tamar, " the felling of the palm-tree," is clear in its derivation. This place is mentioned in the history both of Abraham (Gen. xiv, 7) and of Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xx, 2). In the second of these passages it is expressly identified with Engedi, which was on the western edge of the Dead Sea ; and here we can adduce, as a valuable illustration of what is before us, the language of the Apocrypha, "I was exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi" (Ecclus. xxiv, 14). Here again, too, we can quote alike Josephus (yivvarai iv aiiry tpoiviS, <J /caAAicrroc, -4"/. ix. 1, 2) and Pliny ("Engadda oppidum secundum ab Hierosolyrais, ferti- litate palmetorumque nemoribus," Iligt. Nat. v, 17).
(5.) Another place having the same element in its name, and doubtless the same characteristic in its sce- nery, was Baal-Tamar (Judg. XX, 33). the Br]^Srcti.iap of Eusebius. Its position was near Gibeah of Benja- min ; and it could not be far from Deborah's famous palm-tree (Judg. iv, 5), if indeed it was not identical witli it, as is suggested by Stanley (Sin. and Pal. p. 146).
(6.) We must next mention the Tajiar, "the palm," which is set before us in the vision of Ezekiel (xlvii, 19; xlviii, 28) as a point from which the southern bor- der of the land is to be measured eastward and west- ward. Kobinson identifies it with the Oai^tapw of Ptolemy (v, 16), and thinks its site may be at el-jMilh, between Hebron and Wady Musa {Bib. Res. ii, 198, 202). It seems from Jerome to have been m his day a Roman fortress.