Ship (for the original term, see below). Under this head we propose to bring together all the important information extant relating to ancient and especially Biblical naval operations. In doing so we largely make use of the materials found in the dictionaries of Kitto, Smith, and Fairbairn.
I. Extent of Navigation. — The Jews cannot be said to have been a seafaring people ; yet their position on the map of the world is such as to lead us to feel that thej' could not have been ignorant of ships and the business which relates thereunto. Phoenicia, the north-western part of Palestine, was unquestionably among, if not at the head of, the earliest cultivators of maritime affairs. Then the Holy Land itself lay with one side coasting a sea which was anciently the great highway of naviga- tion, and the centre of social and commercial enterprise. Witliin its own borders it had a navigable lake. The Nile, with which river the fathers of the nation had become acquainted in their bondage, was another great thoroughfare tor ships. The Red Sea itself, which con- ducted towards the remote east, was at no great distance even from the cajiital of the land. Then at different points in its long line of sea-coast there were harbors of no mean repute. Let the reader call to tnind Tyre and Sidon in Phcenicia, and Acre (Acco) and Jaffa (Joppa) in Palestine. Yet the decidedly agricultural bearing of the Israelitish constitution checked such a develop- ment of power, activity, and wealth as these favorable opportunities might have called forth on behalf of sea- faring pursuits. There can, however, be no doubt that the arts of ship -building and of navigation came to Greece and Italy from the East, and immediately from the Levant; whence we may justifiably infer that these arts, so far as they were cultivated in Palestine, were there in a higher state of perfection at an early period, at least, than in the more western parts of the world (Ezek. xxvii; Strabo, bk. xvi; Comenz, De Nave Tyria). In the early periods of their history the Israel- ites themselves would partake to a small extent of this skill and of its advantages, since it was only by degrees that they gained possession of the entire land, and for a long time were obliged to give up the sovereignty of very much of their seaboard to the Philistines and other hostile tribes. Tiie earliest history of Palestinian ships lies in impenetrable darkness, so far as individual facts are concerned. In Gen. xlix, 13 there is, however, a prophecy, the fultilment of which would connect the Israelites with shipping at an early period: "Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea, and he shall be for a haven of ships, and his border shall be unto Zidon" (comp. Deut. xxxiii, 19; Josh, xix, 10 sq.) — words which seem more fitly to describe the position of Asher in the actual division of the land. These local advantages, however, could have been only partially improved, since we find Hiram, king of Tj-re, acting as carrier by sea for Solomon, engaging to convey in floats to Joppa the tim- ber cut in Lebanon for the Temple, and leaving to the Hebrew prince the duty of transporting the wood from the coast to Jerusalem. When, after having conquered Elath and Ezion-geber on the farther arm of the Red Sea, Soh)mon proceeded to convert them into naval sta- tions for his own purposes, he was still, whatever he did himself, indebted to Hiram for "shipmen that had knowledge of the sea" (1 Kings ix, 26 ; x, 22), The
effort, however, to form and keep a navy in connection with the East was not lastingly successful ; it soon be- gan to decline, and Jehoshaphat failed when at a later day he tried to give new life and energy to the enter- prise (xxii, 49, 50). In the time of the Maccabees Joppa was a Jewish seaport (1 Mace, xiv, 5). Herod the Great availed himself of the opportunities naturally afforded to form a more capacious port at Ciesarea (Josephus, War, iii, 9, 3). Nevertheless, no pnrely Jewish trade by sea was hence even now called into being. Caesarea was the place whence Paul embarked in order to pro- ceed as a prisoner to Rome (Acts xxvii, 2). His voyage on that occasion, as described most graphically in the Acts of the Apostles (xxvii, xxviii), if it requires some knowledge of ancient maritime affairs in order to be rightly understood, affords also rich and valuable mate- rials towards a history of the subject, and might, we feel convinced, be so treated as of itself to supply many ir- resistible evidences of the certainty of the events therein recorded, and, b)' warrantable inferences, of the credibil- ity of the evangelical history in general. No one but an eye-witness could have written the minute, exact, true, and graphic account which these two chapters give. The vessels connected with Biblical history were, with the exception of those used on the Sea of Galilee (for which see below), for the most part ships of burden, al- most indeed exclusivelj' so, at least within the period of known historical facts, though in a remote antiquity the Phcenician states can hardly fail to have supported a navy for warlike, as it is known they did for predatory, purposes. This peculiarity, however, of the Biblical ships exonerates us from entering into the general sub- ject of the construction of ancient ships and their sev- eral subdivisions. A good general summary on that head may be found in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, s.y. A few details chiefly respect- ing ships of burden may be of service to the scriptural student.