DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5074#0049
KEDESH NAPHTALL
35
graceful-looking little figure in a toga or flowing dra-
pery. On the ground lay some capitals of rich acanthus
leaves ; and half buried in the soil, and overgrown with
thorns, we found a stone, which we thought looked like
the slightly curved side of an altar. We made our sais
and some others dig it out and turn it up, and found
that it had indeed been an altar, ornamented with three
cones on each side at the top, and having a depression
in the centre; on one side was a representation of
itself, and on the other, between two palm-branches, a
Greek inscription, in which the word ©EOISwas alone
distinct. It appeared to us that every building here,
and all their details, are indubitably Grecian or Koman;
and we sought in vain to discover any of the grounds
upon which Dr. Eobinson founds his " conviction" that
the sarcophagi were of Jewish tombs, or where he found
the " splendour " of which he speaks so strongly.
Here lived Earak, a man of much consideration
among the children of Israel, whom Deborah, the pro-
phetess, desired to go with his 10,000 men to Mount
Tabor, and thence to give battle, in the name of the
Lord, to Sisera, the Ehoenician general, which he did
near the river Kishon. Everybody remembers how the
defeated Sisera was treacherously assassinated by Jael,
the wife of Heber, the Kenite, whose tent was pitched
under " the terebinths of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh.*
Curiously enough, all about Kedesh there is still a re-
markable number of lofty terebinth trees — fine, large,
old trees, with their pointed leaves and pretty bunches of
red berries, which turn green when they are ripe enough
for eating, and from which the Arabs press an oil, good
for burning, but which is very irritating if applied to
* Wrongly translated the "plain of Zaanaim," Judges iv. 11.
» 2
35
graceful-looking little figure in a toga or flowing dra-
pery. On the ground lay some capitals of rich acanthus
leaves ; and half buried in the soil, and overgrown with
thorns, we found a stone, which we thought looked like
the slightly curved side of an altar. We made our sais
and some others dig it out and turn it up, and found
that it had indeed been an altar, ornamented with three
cones on each side at the top, and having a depression
in the centre; on one side was a representation of
itself, and on the other, between two palm-branches, a
Greek inscription, in which the word ©EOISwas alone
distinct. It appeared to us that every building here,
and all their details, are indubitably Grecian or Koman;
and we sought in vain to discover any of the grounds
upon which Dr. Eobinson founds his " conviction" that
the sarcophagi were of Jewish tombs, or where he found
the " splendour " of which he speaks so strongly.
Here lived Earak, a man of much consideration
among the children of Israel, whom Deborah, the pro-
phetess, desired to go with his 10,000 men to Mount
Tabor, and thence to give battle, in the name of the
Lord, to Sisera, the Ehoenician general, which he did
near the river Kishon. Everybody remembers how the
defeated Sisera was treacherously assassinated by Jael,
the wife of Heber, the Kenite, whose tent was pitched
under " the terebinths of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh.*
Curiously enough, all about Kedesh there is still a re-
markable number of lofty terebinth trees — fine, large,
old trees, with their pointed leaves and pretty bunches of
red berries, which turn green when they are ripe enough
for eating, and from which the Arabs press an oil, good
for burning, but which is very irritating if applied to
* Wrongly translated the "plain of Zaanaim," Judges iv. 11.
» 2