The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 120

ment, the river wae found to have been hco.p, very far off, at the city AdAm." The fourteen feet 11bove the level 11t which he city Adam is nowhere else mentioned in found it, 11nd it we.a then quite full. Be.rtlett Scripture. The LXX. e.ppears to have read (' Fl'om Egypt to P11lestine,' p. 451) reme.rks, 1tU? ii<? instead of O11$r.;, i't<r.;,, for it trans- "We were Iortun11te enough to see it in the atate in which it is described in Joshua lates t11p6opa 11'/>00pw~. This r~ading of the 'overflowing 11ll its b11nks '-the.t is th; LXX. shows that t_he correction, thoui;h it whole line of its be.nks. The turbid stream obscures the sense, 1s of great antiq uit.y and rushed 11long like e. mill-race, and though 1hat the site of Adam was then quit~ un- it h11d fallen from its gree.test height, the known. Knobel would place it either just proper bnnks of the channel were invisible, south of the J:abbok, where the lord Dnmielt and indicated only by lines of oleanders and now exiHtB, or at Eduma, now Daumfh other shrubs and trees." This was on the twelve German miles east of Neapolis. Th~ 22nd of March. This overflowing is caused former is generally accepted now, and Con- by the melting of the snows of Hermon der (' Handbook,' p. 241) identifies it "ith which then rush down, fill Lake Hulch and Adrnah (see Gen. xiv. 2), in the plain or its marshes, as well as Gennesareth and ciccar of Jordan. That 1s beside Zaretan. cause the "swelling of Jordan" (Jer. x'ii. 5; ~ailed Za~han in the original (cf. 1 Kings xlix. 19; I. 44), which drives the wilrl beasts ~v. 12; vu. 46), and Zeredatha, in 2 Chron. from their retreats on its banks (see also 1v. 17. Some read Zeredatha for Zererath 1 Chron. xii. 15). Some travellers have in Ju~ges vii. 22. Knobel supposes, and boldly asserted, in spite of this concurrent not without some probability, that Zcre,la testimony, thnt Jordan ·does not overflow Jeroboam's birthplace, is the same as this: its banks 11t the time of harvest. But they It was in the plain of Jordan, not far from have mistaken the whe11t for the barley Succoth, at the mouth of the J al,Lok. The harvest, forgetting that in Palestine the L~?(- h~re reads Kapialhap,iµ, i.P., either latter precedes the former by six or seven Kmatha1m or Ki.ijath-jearim, hut without weeks. By the time of wheat harvest Jor- authority. Delitzsch am! Knobel suppose dan has returned to its normal condition the spot to be Kum, or Kam (i.e., horn) and all traces of the inundation have passed Sartabeh, near the ford lJnmieh, where away (see Thomson, 'Land nnd the Book,' the Jordan valley is at its narrowest, and pp. 618-621). The ttme or harvest, i.e., the rocks stretch forward so as almost to the barley harvest, which took place abont meet. They fix on this spot, partly from the the 10th Nisan, or Abib, when the Israelites suitability of tl.ie situation for such o.n l\rrest- crossed. The wheat harvest was about ing of the waters, partly from its agreement Pentecost, or· seven weeks later (Exod. with the situation of Zarthan, as described in xxxiv. 22). An important argument for the Scriptures. Vandevelde agrees with them. the genuineness of the no.rre.tive (and much There was an Adami and a Zartana tu higher the more important o.s its chief incident is up the river near Bethshee.n, which some miro.cul?us) /s drawn f~om this passage by have supposed to be meant (see eh. xix. 33; Blunt m his 'Undes1gned Coincidences.' 1 Kings iv. 12), Lut these lay entirely out of He remarks that in Exod. ix. 31, 33 the Joshua's line of march. The sea or the Larley and flax are said to have ripened pla.ln. Rather the sea of the ;,::r;iv. (Oci>w11- together. Therefore the time of the barley 11a11 • Apa~a, LXX.), or desert (so Deut. iii. and flax harvest would be identical. Ac- 17; iv. 40; 2 Kings xiv. 25; see also Deut. cordingly we have Rahab, three_ rlays before i. 1). The term is applied by the Hebrews the event here recol'ded, in possession of the nnd Arnbs to e.ny sterile region, nnd tl.ience as yet undried stalks of flax which ha,l just to the sterile depression which bonlers on been cut. Nothing could be II more se.tis- tl.ie Jordan, extending from tho lake of factory proof the.t the narrative we have Tiberias southwo.rd. The Ar"'bs now apply before us comes from persons who were the term el ghol' to the part between Tiberias ~ccurately 11nd minutely informed concern- nn,l the Dend Sea, and reserve the term mg the circumsto.nces of which they tell us. Arabah for the desert valley, or wady, which exten,ls theuce to the Red Sea. 80 Gesen., _Yer. 16.-Stood a.nd ro,11e up upon a heap. 'Theso.urus,' s. v. ; and Robinson, • Bibi. Literally, "stood-they rose up, one heap." Res.' The word tr11nslnted plain in Gen. The narrative e.ssumes a poetic form here xiii. 10 is i:;i;,, a word of very different sig- (cl. Exod. xv. 8, 9; Judges v. 27). Very nification (seE: also' Shephelah' and• Emek,' far from the city Adam. The Mo.sorites eh. x. 40; xi. 2). The salt sea. This sea. is ho.vc corrected th_e text here. The original coiled the Dend Sea from tlw immol,ilitv of text he.s O'J1$=! for which the suggested Keri its waters, ns well QS !,olll the apparent is 0'71$'?.· But the correction is needless. absence of all life within tl.iem. " Some of It is better to render, "they rose up, one our party,'' says Cnnon Tristram," employed 116 THE BOOT{ OF JOSHUA. [ Clt, III. 7-17,