the perfect silence, and fearing an ambush, gave a loud shout, which brought out from one of the caverns two women and five children, the sole survivors, who had managed to conceal themselves whilst the slaughter was going on. The number of persons who perished in this remarkable manner is said to have been 960. A little beyond Jebel Hatrura is Wady Umm Bagkhek, with its tiny rill of sweet water and a profusion of oleanders, canes, ferns, &c.; there are traces of an old road in the valley, and near its mouth the ruins of a castle dating from the time of the Crusades. Further to the south is Wady Zuweireh, and here too there are the remains of a medieval castle, perhaps one of the posts by which the road to Kerak in Moab was secured. In front of the valley is a plain of some extent, which Dr. Tristram found in January, 1864, carpeted with tropical plants in full bloom, many of them new species of Indian or Nubian genera; on a second visit, however, in 1872, a little later in the year, he found it perfectly barren, owing to the lateness of the rains. In Zuweireḥ, M. de Sauley believes he finds traces of the name Zoar, and in the little tower of Umm Zoghal close by he sees the ruins of the town itself; but, as we have previously shown, Zoar must have been far to the north. A little more than a mile beyond Wady Zuweireh is the salt mountain of Jebel Usdum; Dr. Tristram describes it as a huge rock of salt, about 350 feet high, from one to one and a-half miles wide, and about seven miles long, completely isolated from the surrounding mountains; it is penetrated by fissures, "choked with glittering stalactites of salt, though the general aspect of the mount is anything but glittering until closely inspected." Portions of the salt cliff are continually splitting off and falling, leaving perpendicular faces; and " wide as the hill is, there is no plateau on the top, but a forest of little peaks and ridges, furrowed and scarped angularly in every direction." Every year the rains make changes in the form of the mountain, washing away some of the pinnacles, and forming others to take their place: one of these Captain Warren, R.E., describes as a “gigantic Lot with a daughter on each arm, hurrying off in a south-westerly direction, their bodies bent forward as though they were in great haste, and their flowing garments trailing behind;" and another large pillar of salt is called by the Bedawin "Lot's wife." Along the southern end of the Dead Sea stretches the Sebka plain, a great flat of fine sandy mud about fifteen feet above the level of the lake, and extending from its shores for about ten miles in a southerly direction. Nothing can be more dreary than the aspect of this plain, without a plant or leaf to relieve the glare from its surface. The Sebka is furrowed by several small water-courses, and at its eastern extremity is separated by the Wady Tufileh from the Ghor es-Safieh, "a wild thicket and oasis of trees of various kinds with fertile glades and opens of irregular shape, rising gradually to the mountains of Moab." This fertile tract extends about six miles south of the Dead Sea, and is well watered by numerous rivulets; the chief source of its wealth, however, is the broad rushing stream which comes down the Wady Siddiyeh ; this valley was the boundary line between Moab and Edom, and is possibly the brook Zered named in Deut. ii. 13, 14, as the point at which the wanderings of the Israelites ended. Its course is fringed with oleanders, tamarisk, &c., and its waters abound with small fish and fresh-water crabs. North of Wady Siddiyeh are the ruins of a castle of the Crusading period, and still further north, where the mountains approach more closely to the sea, is Wady Nmeirah, with some ruins which have been identified by some writers with Nimrim of Moab; but it seems more probable that the place alluded to in Isa. xv. 6 as the "waters of Nimrim" is higher up the valley, at the springs of Nmeirah, where there are said to be the ruins of an old town. Proceeding northwards along a barren plain at the foot of the hills we reach the curious peninsula called by the Bedawin Lisan, or the " tongue;" the Lisan, formed by the ancient deposits of the Dead Sea, presents a scene of utter desolation, but the beds of marl and gypsum have been cut up by the rains into quaint picturesque forms, which have been compared by travellers to ruined cities or dismantled fortresses; in one of these water-courses called Meraikh are the ruins of a large tower of solid masonry, probably built to secure the passage of the ford across the Dead Sea, which was in use when Irby and Mangles visited the country, but has been impassable for many years owing to the high state of the water. Into the gulf which separates the northern end of the Lisan from the mainland the Wady Kerak discharges its waters, a broad perennial stream, fringed with date-palms and oleanders, that fertilises the Ghor el-Mezari, as the level space between the foot of the mountains and the lake is called. On the south bank of Wady Kerak, a side valley falls in, which is known to the Bedawin as Wady Draa; there are here some ruins bearing the same name, which possibly represent the early Christian Zoar, described as being on the road from the southern end of the Dead Sea to Kerak, and once an episcopal see under the Archbishop of Petra. Soon after passing the mouth of Wady Kerak we come to the Nagh Jerrah, up which a good broad road, though somewhat steep, leads from the Ghor to Shihan (Sihon) and the plains of Moab. Some distance to the north, and nearly opposite En-gedi, the Bedawin pointed out to Professor Palmer a tall isolated needle of rock 1,000 feet above the sea, to which they gave the name of "Lot's wife;" the pillar at a distance bears a certain resemblance to an Arab woman with her child upon her shoulders; the colouring at this point is very fine, the red sandstone being streaked with bright bands of yellow, violet and purple. A little further the Arnon (Wady Mojib) issues from the mountains through a wild romantic gorge, scarcely sixty feet wide, into which the sun rarely penetrates, so lofty are the perpendicular walls of rock that form its sides; the stream is perennial, and in winter as much as forty feet wide and one foot deep. Proceeding northwards again we reach the plain of Zara, a wide open belt of land stretching along the edge of the lake; the surrounding rocks present every variety of gorgeous colouring; and on the plain, amidst groves of tamarisk and acacia, there is rich abundant pasturage, with great tufts of grass ten feet high, and near the shore-line an impassable thicket of cane. The plain is full of hot springs, many of them slightly sulphurous, and near its northern limit are a few broken basaltic columns and rude remains, marking the site of Zareth-shahar, one of the towns allotted to Reuben (Josh. xiii. 19). On the hill-side above the plain are the ruins of Mkaur (Machærus), 3,800 feet above the sea, and covering more than a square mile of ground. Machærus is frequently mentioned by Josephus in connection with the wars of the Jews, and he tells us that Herod greatly strengthened the fortifications and built a magnificent palace there; its chief interest, however, is derived from its having been the place in which John the Baptist was imprisoned and afterwards put to death by order of Herod Antipas. Dr. Tristram, who visited the ruins in 1872, gives an interesting description of the citadel, built at some distance from the town, in which he found two dungeons, "one of them deep, and its sides scarcely broken in," with "small holes still visible in the masonry, where staples of wood and iron had once been fixed," and he concludes that one of these "must surely have been the prisonhouse of John the Baptist." Three miles north of the plain of Zara is the mouth of the gorge of Wady Zerka Main (Callirrhoe), so narrow that it is not seen until it is reached. Picture," says Dr. Tristram, a wild ravine never more than 100 yards wide, and in some places only thirty, winding between two rugged lines of brilliant red cliffs, 600 feet high, which stand perpendicular, but sometimes seem to meet. The water, in a large and rapid lukewarm stream, rushes to the sea, over and among boulders of granite, sandstone, and conglomerate, under the dense shade of tamarisk-trees, choked with cane-brakes, waving their tall feathery heads. An emerald fringe of maiden-hair fern, hanging from the rocks, skirts the line of the stream to the very mouth of the gorge." Some distance up the gorge are the celebrated hot springs of Callirrhoe, to which Herod resorted during his last illness in the vain hope of obtaining relief from its baths; the springs are mentioned both by Pliny and Josephus, and have been visited during the past century by Seetzen, their discoverer, in 1807, and after him by Irby and Mangles, the Duc de Luynes, Dr. Chaplin, Mr. Klein, Captain Warren, R.E., and Dr. Tristram. The springs are all on the right or northern side of the valley, and issue from the rock at the point of junction between the new red sandstone and the limestone; this side of the valley is cut up by deep precipitous ravines, each supplying a hot spring, "which sometimes emerges 66 at the top, and comes dashing down; and at others, bubbles up with tremendous force at the foot." Within three miles there are ten large springs ranging in temperature from 130° to 143°, according to Dr. Tristram; Captain Warren, however, gives the temperature of one as high as 167°. The scenery in the gorge is very striking; on either hand rise lofty walls of rock tinged with red, violet, and yellow; bright green palms nestle in the ravines amidst thick brushwood, where many a strange tropical plant may be seen; round the springs are curious sulphur terraces deposited by the water, whilst the most startling and weird effects are produced by the columns of steam that are continually rising from the boiling caldrons in the lower depths of the chasm. Northwards from the mouth of the Zerka Main the mountains are cut by several ravines of no great importance, except that of Wady ed-Deid, down which a plentiful stream, rising near Medeba, runs through a thicket of willow and oleander to the lake. At this point the plain of Seisaban, with its exuberant fertility, far exceeding that of the oasis of Jericho, may be said to commence; this tract extends northward for about ten or twelve miles, and is everywhere well watered by springs or streams coming down from Jebel Nebbeh (Mount Nebo) and the mountains of Moab. At one point not far from the north-east corner of the Dead Sea are some mounds which may possibly mark the site of Beth Jesimuth, and more to the north is a conspicuous mound crowned by the tomb of a Moslem wely, or saint, called Beit-harran, without doubt the modern representative of Beth-haran, one of the fenced cities built by the children of Gad, and mentioned in Numb. xxxii. 36 with Beth-nimrah, which we have identified in a previous paper with the mound of Nimrin, a short distance higher up the Jordan valley. In the article on the Jordan valley the Seisaban has been alluded to as the site of the encampment of the Israelites before they passed over Jordan, and it would be difficult to find a more suitable locality for the establishment of a large camp. It only remains to notice briefly the continuation of the great fissure of the Jordan valley to the Red Sea. Beyond the Sebka at the southern end of the Dead Sea some hills of moderate elevation are met with, and the road leading over them is probably the "ascent of Akrabbim," mentioned in the Bible as a point in the southern boundary of Judah, and in 1 Macc. v. the scene of Maccabeus' victory over the Edomites; from this point the ground gradually rises till in the neighbourhood of Petra it attains a height of 781 feet above the sea, and it then falls to the level of the Red Sea at Akabah (Elath). 3 as BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. THE BOOK OF EZRA. BY THE REV. CANON RAWLINSON, M.A., CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. T has been shown in a previous article | till towards the close of the fourth century that the division came to be commonly adopted, and that distinction to be made between a "Book of Ezra” and a "Book of Nehemiah," to which we are accustomed. upon the two Books of Chronicles,' that originally the Book of Ezra was, in all probability, not a distinct work, but the concluding section of that large history of the Jewish people which the writer of Chronicles considered to be needed by the circumstances of the times in which he lived. It has been noted that there is a remarkable uniformity of style between the two works; and that, the concluding section of the one being identical with the opening section of the other, and the said section terminating abruptly in Chronicles, it is scarcely possible to frame any other tenable explanation of the facts, than by supposing that one author wrote the whole as a single composition, but that subsequently his work was broken up, the last portion, which treated of a special period of the history, being detached from the rest, and so made into a distinct and separate narrative. The occasion of this separation was, it would seem, the composition of another history by a contemporary, which treating of the same period, and dealing with very similar circumstances, seemed more akin to the post-captivity section of Chronicles than that section was to the narrative whereto it was attached by the author. Ezra was separated from Chronicles, not to stand by itself, but to be attached to Nehemiah, and to be considered as forming the opening section of a postcaptivity history, which began with the decree of Cyrus and terminated with Nehemiah's reforms in B.C. 431. Such a mode of manipulating historical writings is not uncommon in the East, where the amour propre of authors is little considered, and the main object is to arrange the history conveniently for the learner. In the Jewish Church there seems to have been from very early times a superintending body, which had histories completed or curtailed, which compiled works from existing materials,3 and which regarded itself as entitled to arrange the Scriptures in the most convenient form, whether by separating an integral work into parts, or by uniting separate productions into a whole. Ezra was, until the third century A.D., united with Nehemiah, the two "Books" constituting together what was then called "the Book of Ezra." Origen is the first writer who notes that the works are really separate; and even he lets us see that the separateness was not in his time generally recognised. It was not 1 See BIBLE EDUCATOR, Vol. III., p. 137. 2 The concluding chapter of Deuteronomy must have been added to the work of Moses by some such authority, which may also have curtailed the Second Book of Samuel. (See BIBLE EDUCATOR, Vol. III., p. 3, note 2.) 3 The original "Books of the Kings," which Jeremiah used in composing the existing "Books," were such compilatious, gradually made out of the works of the Prophets by some authority. 4 Origen speaks of "the first and second of Esdras, which together mako up Esdras." (Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vi. § 25.) It is allowed on all hands that portions of the Book of Ezra are from the pen of Ezra himself. In chap. vii. 27, 28, and in the whole of chaps. viii. and ix., the first person is used, where it is plain that Ezra himself is intended; and so much of the work is on this account universally admitted to be his. Some writers' are of opinion that the rest of the Book is from a different hand. Others assign to Ezra the last four chapters, but think that the first six are the composition of a different author. A minute examination of the text has convinced the present writer that the entire work is from first to last the production of one pen; and he has no hesitation in assigning to Ezra the composition of the whole.s A division of the Book, however, into two distinct portions must be freely granted; and it must be allowed that Ezra is not in the same sense the author of both. The narrative contained in the first six chapters, commencing with the first year of Cyrus in Babylon, or B.C. 538,9 and terminating with the sixth year of Darius Hystaspis, or B.C. 515, is divided by a gap of no less than fifty-seven years from the narra tive of the last four chapters, which belongs to the seventh and eighth years of Artaxerxes Longimanus,"1 10 5 Jerome is the first writer who speaks of a "Book of Nehemiah." (Ep. ad Paulin., Op., vol. iv., part ii., p. 574.) 6 As De Wette (Einleitung in d. Alt. Test. § 195), and Bertheau (Exeget. Handbuch, vol. iv., part ii., pp. 7, 8). 7 As the present Bishop of Bath and Wells. (See the Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i., p. 606.) 8 An outline of the grounds on which this opinion is formed has been given in the Speaker's Commentary, vol. iii., pp. 386-7. The unity of the work is apparent, not merely from its uniformity of style, but from the correspondency of plan between the second section (chaps. vii.-x.), admitted to be by Ezra, and the first section (chaps. i.—vi.), whereof his authorship is doubted. 9 This date is determined by the Canon of Ptolemy. There is no need to suppose that the Jews regarded "the reign of the kingdom of Persia" as commencing two years later (B.c. 536), for the prophetic round number seventy years need not have been fulfilled exactly. The Captivity commenced B.C. 605 (Dan. i. 1; 2 Kings xxiv. 13; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6, 7). The decree of Cyrus was issued B.C. 538, in the sixty-eighth year after. The foundations of the Temple were laid B.c. 537 (Ezra iii. 8), in the sixty-ninth year after the commencement of the Captivity. 10 That the Darius of chap. iv. 24, chap. v. 6, 7, and chap. vi. 1-15, is Darius Hystaspis, and not Darius Nothus, follows from the fact distinctly stated in chap. v. 2, that Zerubbabel and Jeshua, who brought the people from Babylon in n.c. 538 (Ezra iii. 2), and commenced the rebuilding of the Temple in B.C. 537 (ib. iii. 8), were still living in his second year. The second year of Darius Nothus was B.C. 423, or 115 years after Zerubbabel and Jeshua were full-grown men. (Compare Hagg. i. 1, &c., and Zoch. iii. 1; iv. 9.) 11 That the Artaxerxes of chap. vii. 1-27, and of Neh. ii. 1; xiii. 6, is Longimanus, is generally allowed. It is rendered almost certain by the fact that the high priest contemporary with him was Eliashib (Neh. iii. 1; xiii. 4), the grandson of Jeshua (ib. xii. 10). Artaxerxes Longimanus was the grandson of Darius Hystaspis. or to B.C. 458 and 457. Ezra himself lived in this latter period, and was sent from Babylon into Judæa by Artaxerxes, on a special commission (vii. 14), in the year B.C. 458, when he was certainly not less than thirty,' and probably not more than fifty years of age. His own birth, therefore, would have fallen into the period B.C. 508-488; and he can scarcely have had any personal knowledge of the events which occurred during the period B.C. 538-516. They belonged to the time of his father or his grandfather. Thus, while he is to be viewed as the original and sole author of the second section (chaps. vii.—x.), towards the first section (chaps. i-vi.) he stands in the position of a compiler. He could not have written it at first hand, but must have derived his knowledge of the events contained in it either from inquiries or from documents. An examination of the work itself indicates a strong probability that documents were its main source. The decree of Cyrus (i. 2-4), the letter of Rehum (iv. 8-16), the reply of Artaxerxes (iv. 17—22), the letter of Tatnai (v. 7-17), the decree of Darius (vi. 3—12), are plainly documents. Copies of them would necessarily exist in the Persian archives in Ezra's time, and might probably exist also at Jerusalem. The lists contained in chap. i. (vv. 9—11) and chap. ii. (vv. 2—61, 64–67, and 69), consisting as they do almost wholly of names and numbers, must also, it would seem, have been derived from documents, since they are far too exact to be the result of mere inquiry. This conclusion, which it would be natural to draw from Ezra alone, is confirmed by a comparison of Ezra ii. with Nehemiah vii. and 1 Esdras v., which contain lists parallel to those in Ezra ii., but clearly not drawn from them-lists of which the most reasonable account is, that they were taken from the same document that the writer of Ezra used, a document which was illegible in parts, and in others difficult to decipher.3 If this be allowed, then the documentary portion of the first section of Ezra will amount to 112 verses out of 157, or to considerably more than two-thirds of the whole; and Ezra's own direct contributions to the narrative will be reduced to forty-five verses, or less than three-tenths. It has been supposed by some that Ezra found the documents in question already embodied in an historical work from the pen of Zechariah, or Haggai, the prophets of the return from the Captivity. But this supposition is entirely unsupported by evidence. While, on the one hand, there is no resemblance in style between the first section of Ezra and the admitted prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, on the other, there is the closest resemblance between the peculiarities of the narrative connecting the documents in this section and the pecu 4 This follows from his being a "ready scribe (Ezra vii. 6), and teacher of the law (ib. ver. 10), when he received his commission. On similar grounds it has been concluded that certain lists in Herodotus were drawn from Persian documents. (See Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. i., p. 56.) 3 Compare the Speaker's Commentary, vol. iii., p. 395 (note on Ezra ii. 6!). 4 On these peculiarities, see the Speaker's Commentary, vol. iii., p. 387, note 7. liarities observable throughout the second section, which is generally allowed to be Ezra's. If, therefore, Ezra found any general narrative of the events in question already in existence, and regarding it as authoritative, followed it, at any rate it is clear that he did not copy it or embody it as it stood, but re-wrote the whole in his own words. The subject-matter of Ezra is the history of the chosen race from the accession of Cyrus to the spring of B.C. 437, the eighth year of Artaxerxes Longimanus; or rather perhaps the history during such space of that portion of the chosen race which took advantage of the decree of Cyrus, and returned to its native country, Palestine. The time covered is eighty-one years. The scene is in part Babylon, in part Judæa, in part the intermediate country. The narrative opens with the statement that "in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia," to make a certain proclamation, the terms of which are given. The prophecy of Jeremiah, whereto allusion is made, is contained in his twenty-fifth and twenty-ninth chapters; where he announces that "after seventy years Babylon shall be punished and the Jews delivered from their captivity."6 Cyrus seems to have taken Babylon in the sixty-eighth year after the Captivity commenced, thus anticipating the round number used by Jeremiah by a couple of years. Having been acknowledged as king, he almost immediately issued his decree allowing "all the people of Jehovah" to return to their own land. The terms of this decree are recorded by the writer of Ezra in three verses of his first chapter (vv. 2-4). He then proceeds in general terms to relate the result-the actual return of a part of the people under a leader, whom he calls Sheshbazzar in one place (chap. i. 8) and Zerubbabel in others (chaps. iii. 2; iv. 2; v. 2, &c.); he gives a list of the sacred vessels which they brought back with them (chap. i. 9-11), of the chiefs who headed them (chap. ii. 2), of the families into which they were divided, and the number of each family (chap. ii. 3-39), of the Levitical and other septs connected with the service of the sanctuary (chap. ii. 40— 58), and of the exiles who did not know their pedigree (chap. ii. 59-61); estimating the whole number of those that returned at something a little short of 50,000 (chap. ii. 64, 65). To this account he adds the number of their horses, mules, camels, and asses (chap. ii. 66, 67). He then proceeds to narrate the restoration of the Temple-how the rich men subscribed towards it (chap. ii. 68, 69); how Jeshua the high priest, and Zerubbabel the prince of Judah, took the lead, first erecting the altar of burnt-offering (chap. iii. 2, 3), then keeping the Feast of Tabernacles (ib. ver. 4), after this obtaining timber from Phoenicia (ib. ver. 5 It should be remembered that a large proportion of the Israelites preferred to remain in the countries to which the Babyloniaus had transported them (Josephus, Ant. xi. 1), and remained there permanently, their descendants being still found in the country at the present day. 6 Jer. xxv. 12; xxix, 10, |