RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Nausea Navigation
was decorated with some device which served also as a mark of identification; Greek and Roman writers say that Phenician ships carried the head of a horse at the bow, as did an Assyrian ship figured in the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad.
The Hebrews of the highlands of Palestine had necessarily nothing to do with seafaring matters. Whether the smaller tribes which for 3. Early a time or always had their homes by Hebrew the sea engaged in marine business the Navigation, notices in Gen. xlix. 13 and Judges v. Tarshish: 17 do not make sufficiently clear. Outside of these, the reigns of David and Solomon seem to have been the first period when Hebrews used the sea, being then in close connection with the Phenicians. The embassies between Jerusalem and Tyre and the exchange of commodities imply sea traffic (II Sam. v. 11; I Kings v. 15 sqq., ix. 11, 14). Hiram sent the timbers needed by Solomon in rafts (I Kings v. 9), and the Chronicler asserts that these came to Joppa (II Chron. ii. 16); possibly Solomon had control of the trade routes and so of the road to Joppa, though it is more likely that Dor (see Philistines) was the port used, since this is known to have been in the region already subject to Solomon. From Elath or from Eziongeber traffic was carried on with Ophir (q.v.). Tarshish was also a port to which ships sailed. The Old Testament does not make clear where Tarshish lay, except that it was somewhere in the West, either on the Mediterranean or still farther west. It is mentioned as belonging to the islands or coast lands of the Mediterranean, known as of importance and celebrated by Sidonian seafarers, as belonging to the Greeks (Isa. xxiii. 1, lx. 9; Ezek. xxvii. 12, 25; Gen. x. 4), and as reached by sailing from Joppa (Jonah i. 3); Isa. lxvi. 19 implies that its distance was great. Eusebius and Jerome did not know where it was, but thought of Tarsus, and it was also located at Carthage and in India. The identification which has the best authority is Tartessus in Spain, on the river Guadalquivir, on which was the Phenician colony of Gadir (Gadeira, Gades, Cadiz), founded according to the Romans about 1100 b.c. Greeks from Phoca?a settled at Tarshish c. 600 b.c, since the control of the region by the Phenicians ceased about 700 b.c. because of their wars with the Assyrians. But between 500 and 300 the Carthaginians held Gades. The earlier passages in the Old Testament assign Tarshish to the Phenicians, while later passages (P in Gen. x. 4) reckon it to the Greeks, and this is significant. It is noteworthy that the wares said to be from Tarshish were those of Tartessus. It is reported of Solomon in I Kings x. 22 that he had " ships of Tarshish " which made a trip every three years, and the passage gives the lading; the parallel text (II Chron. ix. 21) affirms that the ships sailed to Tarshish. It has been supposed that the expression " ships of Tarshish " merely means " great seagoing vessels," which is indeed the case in, e.g., Isa. ii. 16; Ps. xlviii. 7. But the passage in Kings is to be taken as expressing ships which sailed to Tarshish in company with the ships of Hiram on the Mediterranean, and Dor must have been the home port. The time consumed indicates a great distance. But
in the Greco-Roman times the passage from Tyre to Tarshish consumed about twenty-four days, therefore it took perhaps thirty days in Solomon's time. Probably the meaning is that during the first summer the outward voyage was made, the lading was secured during the second summer, and the return journey was made in the third, since during the stormy season the sea was not traversed, and stops were probably made at many ports on the way. Closer conclusions as to the merchandise can not be reached, from the passage under discussion, since it is not said that these came only from Tarshish, and possibly Northern Africa was a second source whence the wares were derived. From I Kings xxii. 48- 49 and II Chron. xx. 35-37 other conclusions follow. The first of these passages clearly means by " ships of Tarshish " vessels like those which sailed to that port, and the Chronicler again affirms that they sailed from Eziongeber to Tarshish. This was indeed not impossible if the route by way of the Nile and a canal to the Red Sea be thought of. But it is probable that the thought of the earlier passage (I Kings xxii. 48) ruled the statement of the supposed facts.
Of Azariah it is reported in II Kings xiv. 21-22 that he regained Elath, though it was soon recovered from the Jews (II Kings xvi. 6) ; but the Jews who were there may have engaged in navigation. Nothing is said of participation by the northern kingdom in the commerce of the Phenicians 4. Later during the alliance between the dy- Hebrew nasty of Omri with that of Tyre. The Navigation, oracle on Issachar and Zebulun in Deut. xxxiii. 18-19 necessitates participation in sea traffic on the part of the latter at least, with the Bay of Accho as the point of departure. Similarly Hos. xii. 7-8, implying that Hebrews had learned the ways of the Canaanites, involves the interpretation that the former participated in commerce by sea, though of course only a part of the population was so engaged. For postexilic times there are indications such as Ps. cvii. 23-30. Jonah i. gives a fair idea of the ideas of mariners of antiquity concerning the causes of storms; Prov. xxxi. 14 compares the prudence of the good housewife with the management of a ship; Eccles. xi. 1 may refer to traffic by sea; Ecclus. xxxiv. 9-16 hints at a sea voyage; the late passage Isa. xxxiii. 23 takes its figures from the tackle of a ship. Simon the Maccabee made Joppa a Hebrew port in 145 b.c. (see Philistines); Josephus (Ant., XIV., x.) reports decrees of the Romans which imply that the Jews had dealings on the sea, and Hyrcanus charged his brother Aristobulus before Pompey with permitting sea-robbery to exist, and in War, II., xxi. 8 mentions 330 (230 ?) boats on the Sea of Tiberias, while the Gospels speak frequently of the fisheries there. The account in Acts xxvii.-xxviii. of Paul's journey is valuable for the new light it affords on sea travel. Ships had by this time reached a considerable size, the Isis of Alexandria being 180 feet long, forty-five feet beam, and forty-three and a half feet deep, giving a tonnage of about 2,700. Such ships carried a foremast, used also probably as a crane; besides the mainsail and the foresail, a topsail was sometimes carried.
Naville Nazarenes