[the print again heads this “III” — it is the comparative treatment of the land’s quality]
Josephus institutes a comparison of the Cisjordanian with the Transjordanian region (bk. 3, ch. 4); but of the Cisjordanian [compared] with itself, and with other regions, [in] bk. 5 of the Antiquities, ch. 1, where he says [that] the nature of this whole land is such that, if it be compared with any other, it may deservedly be reckoned παντευδαίμων [panteudaimōn], that is, “wholly happy and blessed”; but if [compared] with the places of Jericho and Jerusalem, it may seem as [it were] nothing. But to make understood that comparison of it with other lands, three scriptures especially seem [apt]. The first is Deut. 32, v. 13, where it is called “a high land [excelsa terra]” — not because it surpasses others by the loftiness of [its] places, but because it excels [them] in goodness and fruitfulness. For thus they explain that “loftiness” [by] the [things] which are added: “that he might eat the fruits of the fields, [and] suck honey out of the rock,” and the rest. To this [sense] the Seventy Interpreters call us, when they render [it] τὴν ἰσχὺν τῆς γῆς [tēn ischyn tēs gēs], “the force and strength of the land.” For [that] which is outstanding and choice in any kind is wont to be called its “force and strength” — as Aquila here calls [it] τὸ ἴσωμα [to isōma], “the summit and peak.” Yet if one should think that a reckoning of height too is had [here], that could be [understood] in two ways: either because [it was] more northerly, or because [it was] more mountainous. In the former way it is not [higher], if it be compared with Syria and Armenia, and other more remote parts. In the latter way it is; but what praise is that? why would Moses proclaim this eulogy of the land? Are not very many other regions most mountainous? — and indeed not most remote from this promised [land]? There are, however, some of the Innovators whom another exposition pleases: [namely] that, because in the Hebrew it is “He carried him on [in] a high land,” by these [words] be understood “fortified cities” — not into which, but upon which, God carried the people led out from Egypt. But the Hebrew preposition “hal” [ʿal] means also “in,” as Junius and Tremellius themselves render [it] in the same phrase (1 Kings [1 Samuel] 1:19); and the [things] which are added sufficiently indicate [that] the “terminus toward which” is treated of. But for “the high places of the land,” “high land” is rightly rendered — as [in] Isaiah 14:14, “I will ascend above the high places of the cloud,” that is, “the high cloud.” The other scripture is Ezekiel 20, v. 6, where it is called “excellent [egregia] among all lands,” and below (v. 15) “the chief [praecipua] of all lands,” where in the Hebrew the word is “tsebi” — which sometimes signifies a living creature, [that] which, in the genus of deer, is called “a fawn [hinnulus],” or “a roebuck [capreolus], a doe, or a roe” (Deut. 12:21; 14:5; 3 Kings [1 Kings] 4:21; Isaiah 13:14; Prov. 6:5; Cant. 2:9); sometimes “glory,” “ornament [decus],” “a thing worthy of desire and love”; and the Hebrews fetch the word from the verb “tsabah,” which is “to be lifted up, to swell, and to be puffed up” (Num. 5:21, 22, 27). Because, then, by [their] lightness and running the fawns are wonderfully lifted up over the thickets and mountains, and because they are little by little lifted up and swell, they are called by this name “tsebi.” Again, because the [things] which are lifted up over others, and stand out, we are wont to pursue with glory, desire, and love; and because the same thing is wont to lift up, puff up, and make swollen the minds of mortals — therefore the Hebrews affect with the same name “glory” and “ornament,” love and desire, or any “glorious” thing — excellent, lovable, desirable (Isaiah 13:19; ch. 23:9; ch. 24:16; ch. 28:1 and 5; and other places, as will be indicated a little after). And [these] are variously rendered, partly by our [Interpreter], partly by the 70. But let it please [me] now to weigh only those scriptures in which [there] is clearly mention of our Israelite land. Therefore [in] 2 Kings [2 Samuel], ch. 1, v. 19: “hatsebi Israel hal bamotcicha” — [in] the Seventy, στήλωσον Ισραήλ [stēlōson Israēl], [and] Aquila, ἀκρίβασον [akribason]; and its rendering [is] double in the Latin corrected Bibles also. One version, which answers to those Greek [readings]: “Consider, O Israel” (or: “set up and confirm thyself for considering”) “for those who are dead, wounded upon thy high places.” The other, which comes nearer to the likeness of the versions to be cited below: “The illustrious of Israel are slain upon thy mountains” — that is, “O Israel, the illustrious are slain upon the mountains.” And, retaining the Hebrew number [in] the same sense: “The glory, or ornament, O Israel, is wounded [or slain] upon thy mountains.” It can also be read: “O illustrious [one] of Israel, [they] are slain upon thy mountains” — that is, “O illustrious and glorious Israelite people, upon thy mountains any of the strong is slain,” to which is joined: “How are the strong fallen?” [And] Jeremiah 3, v. 19: “How shall I put thee among the sons, and give thee a desirable land, a noble inheritance of the armies of the nations?” For, for “a noble inheritance of the armies of the nations,” in the Hebrew it is “nachelath tsebi, tsiboth goiim” — that is, “an inheritance of glory,
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a glory of the armies of the nations.” In the 70, [it is] κληρονομία θεοῦ παντοκράτορος ἐθνῶν [klēronomia theou pantokratoros ethnōn], “an inheritance of the almighty God of the nations” — either because God is the glory of all nations, or because he was giving the inheritance of that land which is the glory, ornament, and adornment of the lands which the nations hold in possession. Daniel 8, v. 9: “there was made a great horn toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the strength [contra fortitudinem].” Here in the Hebrew it is “tsebi”; but it is also rendered by the 70 — in this place — δύναμις [dynamis, “power”], as though they looked to “tseba” or “sebaoth [Sabaoth],” which (Ps. 23, v. 11, and elsewhere) they render τὰς δυνάμεις [tas dynameis, “the powers/hosts”]. Nor [is it] new and unusual that “iod” can be put for “aleph,” since both belong to the letters which are called “interchangeable” by the Hebrews. Daniel 11, v. 16: “he shall stand in the illustrious land,” which [is] “erets hatsebi”; and the Septuagint retain the very Hebrew word, τοῦ σαβεί [tou sabei]. And below, in the same chapter, v. 41: “he shall enter into the glorious land”; in the 70, “the land τοῦ σαβαείμ [tou sabaeim].” And again, v. 45: “upon the illustrious and holy mountain”; in the Hebrew, “lehar tsebi Kodesch,” “on the mountain of ornament, or of the glory of holiness.” Since, then, that word “tsebi” is rendered in so many ways, and always signifies “something excellent, illustrious, perhaps glorious, and almost divine,” and [since] so expressly, twice in Ezekiel’s ch. 20 (as was cited), the “land of Israel” is said to be “the tsebi of the lands” — not of “some” only, but of “all” — of what sort was it? How excellent, how illustrious, and blessed it was!
But three [things] are yet to be seen here. First: why its excellence is noted by that name. “Just as the deer,” says Radak, “is swifter of foot than the other animals, so the land of Israel is, before others, light and easy for ripening its fruits, according to the Rabbis.” Others think this is [so] from the usage of the Chaldee tongue, in which “tsebi” is called “ornament, pleasantness, glory, and adornment.” But (as I said) that [word] is either from the Hebrew verb “tsabah” or from the noun “tsaba”; and why the Israelite region is rightly called “tsebi,” the causes have already been indicated above.
Second: how “tsebi” is expounded by the Greeks in this place of Ezekiel. The Septuagint rendered [it] κήριον [kērion], that is, “honeycomb” — perhaps by a certain allusion to “tsuph,” which is “honeycomb.” Aquila (says St. Jerome, on Ezekiel 20): “the first edition put ‘foundation,’ the second ‘illustrious.’” Symmachus [put] “religion” (not “region,” as Jerome is edited in today’s books); Theodotion, “strength [fortitudo].” And why “strength” can be [the] rendering, was said before. But στάσις [stasis] seems to be derived from “iatsah,” which is “to stand, to establish”; and (as I said) Symmachus rendered it not “region,” but “religion” — because, although στάσις [is] properly “a standing [state],” yet that interpreter Symmachus was establishing [that] the best state of the commonwealth [rests] in the worship and religion of God. For thus the Greek scholia speak of him: “having called [it] στάσις [a standing]…, in that [the land] is dedicated to God for a priesthood.” And immediately after the words already cited, St. Jerome himself subjoins [that] that land is so called “because in it is the religion of God, and the temple, and ceremony, and the knowledge of God.”
Third: how that comparison with all other lands is to be taken. For some of the other lands do indeed seem more fruitful, more pleasant, more delightful than the Israelite land — or at least to yield to it neither in the temper and healthfulness of the sky, nor in the fertility of fields, gardens, and vineyards, nor in the number and throng of inhabitants. For (that I may omit Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the like) how great [is] the fertility, amenity, [and] multitude of the parts of the New World! And, that I may not pursue the most remote [lands] — how great, in Lithuania, [is] the abundance of milk and honey? how great in Attica and Thessaly, where [is] Tempe? Pliny (bk. 6, ch. 28): “Arabia,” he says, “[is] to be put after no nations.” And afterward: “the Sabaeans [are] the richest, by the odoriferous fertility of forests, by the mines of gold, of fields, of watered honey and of wax by [their] produce.” And, in the end of the whole work, instituting a contest of all lands, “Now,” he says, “all the works of nature being finished, [it is fitting] to make a certain distinction of the things themselves. Therefore in the whole world — and toward whatever quarter of the sky the vault [conexity] inclines — the fairest of all, and, by merit, obtaining the principate of things by nature, [is] Italy, the ruler and second parent of the world: by [its] men, women, leaders, soldiers, slaves, by the excellence of arts, [and] by the brightness of talents… Now, by [its] situation, and the healthfulness and temper of the sky, by the easy access of all nations, by [its] harbored shores, by the benign breath of the winds… For it falls out [that] its recurrent position [lies] in the most useful part, and midway between east and west, with abundance of waters, healthfulness of groves, articulations of mountains, innocence of wild animals, fertility of soil, [and] richness of population. Whatever there is which life ought not to lack, nowhere [are there] more excellent crops, wine, oil, fleeces, flax, garments, young bullocks. Not even in horses [do I observe] any home-bred animals to be preferred in the triga [three-horse chariots]. In the mines of gold, silver, bronze, iron, so long as it pleased to work [them], it yielded to none. And now, pregnant in itself, in place of every dowry it pours forth various juices, and the savors of crops and fruits. From it — the fabulous Indies excepted — I would next name Spain, wherever it is bounded by the sea.” — [Now,] if Palestine and Judaea have, by Pliny’s judgment, neither the first nor the second [place], how [can it be] “the chief of all lands, excellent among all, the foundation, state, strength, ornament, and glory of all”? Certainly, in Bereschith Rabbah (ch. 27), Italy is called “that land whose richness is proclaimed” (in v. 39, Gen. 27): “Behold, in the fatness of the earth shall thy dwelling be” — which our Interpreter joined with what follows, saying, “in the fatness of the earth and in the dew of heaven from above shall thy blessing be.” And Elias Levi adds Calabria, saying, “which land [is] very rich, or most fertile.”
[There is] a twofold manner of answering. One: [that] it too is called “excellent and illustrious” in some one whole genus, and likewise [that] this [genus is] its “glory, ornament, and strength” — [genera] in which, however, it does not altogether surpass all [lands], but only very many. There would not be many “excellent” men, if [only he] who ought to be prince of all [could be counted] worthy of this name. How many once heard [themselves called] μέγα κῦδος Ἀχαιῶν [mega kydos Achaiōn, “great glory of the Achaeans”], “the glory of the Romans, the ornament and adornment of the fatherland”? So also the Israelite land could be heaped up with those same encomia — although it did not excel absolutely all lands, but only many, by the endowments which I mentioned before. The other [manner]: that we say [that] it excels all regions universally; but [that] the excellence can be weighed either from the sacred and heavenly [things] alone, or from the natural and earthly alone, or from both. The sacred and heavenly only, the before-praised Symmachus weighs [considers] — as both the Greek Scholiast and St. Jerome expounded it. And indeed it is most true [that] the chief dignity of this land — by which it far surpassed all the rest — was the dignity [derived] from the true worship of God, from the august sacred abode [temple] of the same, from the sacrifices, ceremonies, and laws. Yet if we look at the context, [we see that] this [land] is [here] regarded by Ezekiel not
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[regarded] only [sacredly], we will confess. For God wishes to commemorate his benevolence and signal beneficence toward his people — [namely] that he led [them] into a land flowing with honey and milk, which deservedly was, and was called, the ornament of lands. But if the account of the sacred laws and rites only be had, [then] Mount Sinai, the wilderness itself, every region also, and any place where the tabernacle was, would claim this glory for itself; and since the abundance of milk and honey is joined to this ornament, [it is] sufficiently indicated by that [i.e. by that abundance] that this [ornament comes] from that — that is, from the goodness of the land — as St. Jerome saw and noted, saying: “But according to the letter, [that] the land of Judah is illustrious, and more fertile than all lands, no one will be able to doubt,” etc. And this opinion sits closest to the truth: if the Israelite dominion be compared with any other, not in any way whatever, but so [that] the other be of the same quantity, and not of greater; and so [that] all the [things] which the richness of this soil would pour forth be compared, all together heaped up, with the crops and fruits of the other — among which [is] also balsam. For thus this [land] will outweigh all — whatever Pliny may say of his Italy or Spain — to whom, as to Ulysses, his own fatherland, the rugged little nest of Ithaca, is pleasing. But if the natural fertility of the soil alone gives this land the principate of all, what if we understand that same fertility [to be] divinely augmented and amplified? And indeed [it] can be understood, from that [fertility] which the Lord promises every sixth [seventh] year, by the blessing [of] Lev. ch. 25, vv. 20, 21, 22. For, that in that year always [there] should come, for three whole years, an abundance of wheat, wine, and other fruits — “it was a miracle,” says Abulensis in that place; and it appeared clearly enough that this happened not by accident, or from some special condition of nature, but solely from the goodness of God. Finally, if to the natural and supernatural excellence of that land, already indicated, be joined that which religion, the temple, the holiness of ceremonies, and other spiritual and divine [things] supply — what [thing] under the sun, in the whole world, [is] better, happier, [more] divine than that land?
Yet three [things] seem to obscure this so great renown of the land. First: Famine — which [was] there not rarely (Gen. 12; 26; 47; 42; Ruth 1; 2 Kings [Samuel] 21; 3 Kings [1 Kings] 18; 4 Kings [2 Kings] 4; 1 Macc. 9; Acts 11). Secondly: In the city of Jerusalem, the scarcity of wells and springs, and the roughness of the site: “It is the worst province of all,” says St. Jerome (on Isaiah, ch. 49), “and is rough with rocky mountains, and suffers the penury of thirst, so that it uses heavenly rains, and consoles the rarity of springs by the building of cisterns.” And yet that [city] was the metropolis of that land, the head of the kingdom, τῆς χώρας ὀμφαλός [tēs chōras omphalos], that is, “the navel of the whole region,” as Josephus says (bk. 4, ch. 4) — nay, [it is] called by Pliny (bk. 5, ch. 14) “by far the most illustrious of the cities of the East.” Thirdly, and lastly: the present-day sterility of those places. But to dissipate those three [objections is] not laborious. For as to the first: [there is] no such happiness in [any] lands but that it depends on the sky and on God. If he wills [it] not, all [things] in them are unhappy. But for certain and just causes he sometimes makes unhappy — as men, so also the happiest lands. For either he calls famine and sends it upon them, as [it were] a penalty; or [makes it] as [it were] the light, the material, [and] the occasion of some excellent benefaction and virtue.
As to the second: the parts of this land are not to be regarded singly and in isolation (for among them were rough, thirsty, sterile [places]); but the whole region [is] to be beheld together. And although Jerusalem had a naturally rougher site of this kind, and a scarcity of waters, yet God provided for it abundant and healthful waters — whether from the clouds, or from neighboring places through pipes and channels — as St. Jerome partly indicates in his own words, [and] partly those most artful pools attest, to which the Bridegroom compares the eyes of his Bride (Cant., ch. 7, v. 4): “thy eyes [are] as the fishpools in Hesebon, which are in the gate of the daughter of the multitude.” For, for “in Hesebon,” one may take the exposition of the Hebrew name — [namely] “in” or “with art [artifice] made” (that is, situated at the gate of the flock [ad portam gregis], by far the most frequented). For from it, one went to the various parts of the city of Jerusalem, and to three new [quarters] like towns; and near it was the largest market, as is understood from Nehemiah (ch. 3, v. 1).
As to the third: Genebrardus (bk. 2, Chronology): “The whole beauty and happiness of the holy land fell together with the temple and the nation” — so that, namely, just as [the land] once held [a state] like a paradise (Gen. 13, v. 10), [so] the Sodomitic soil [was] reduced, by a divine [judgment], into ashes and a condemned sterility (Gen. 19); and the mountains of Gelboe [were] bereft of all dew and rain (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 1, v. 21) — and so now [is] that land. Let Chrysostom be seen (on 1 Thess., homily 5). For although he speaks chiefly of the Sodomitic field, yet — because it takes [its] beginning from Ascalon and Gaza — it can be understood also of other portions in part. “A region,” he says, “once εὔφορος [euphoros, ‘fruitful’], πασῶν τῶν ἐρήμων ἐρημοτέρα ἔτι νῦν [pasōn tōn erēmōn erēmotera eti nyn, ‘more desert than all deserts even now’].” And indeed Radak (on Psalm 131, v. 15) says [that] this region was, in the temple’s honor, watered and fruitful. The temple, therefore, being taken away, deservedly [were] the watering and fruitfulness also taken away. Whence [that] balsam, says the same Genebrardus, “granted to Judaea alone (from Pliny, bk. 12, ch. 26), and never seen elsewhere than at Jericho, was transferred into Egypt. Josephus ben Gorion (bk. 4, ch. 22).” But if one should wish [it] so transferred thence, that it was no longer there afterward, [that] can be refuted even from the cited Pliny himself, when — after the times of the Vespasians — he relates [that] the little balsam-shrubs [were] there planted, tended, and guarded by the public care and expense of the Roman senate. And indeed [that] in his own time it still existed there, St. Jerome shows (on Ezekiel, ch. 27), and St. Gregory in his own [day] (on Cant. 1). Elsewhere too, however, some traces of the old richness and fatness appear — as was indicated above from Radziwiłł.
The third scripture, finally, which seems to indicate a comparison of this land with others, is Psalm 73[74], v. 14: “God has worked salvation in the middle of the earth.” Hence some suppose [that] Judaea is situated in the middle of the terrestrial globe; and they explain this in a twofold [way]. 1. “It was,” says P. Salmeron (Prolegomenon 41), “in the fourth climate of the world, and in the middle of the [then-]habitable earth.” 2. “It joins the Orientals,” says Genebrardus on that Psalm, “to the Occidentals by the Mediterranean sea; and the Northerns to the Southerns — running through the same sea as far as the Maeotic marsh, very far to the north, and descending most deeply into the south through the Red Sea.” By others, however, “the land in whose middle the Lord has worked salvation” [is referred] to Judaea alone,
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it is restricted. For “μεσαιτάτη δ’ ἡ πόλις τὰ Ἱεροσόλυμα κεῖται [mesaitatē d’ hē polis ta Hierosolyma keitai, ‘and the city Jerusalem lies most exactly in the middle’],” says Josephus (bk. 3, ch. 4), “παρὸ καί τινες οὐκ ἀσκόπως ὀμφαλὸν τὸ ἄστυ τῆς χώρας ἐκάλεσαν [paro kai tines ouk askopōs omphalon to asty tēs chōras ekalesan, ‘wherefore some, not without reason, have called the town the navel of the region’].” By others, however, that “in the middle of the earth” is thus expounded, so that it be: “God has worked salvation of every kind openly, publicly, before all.” For [that] which is most conspicuous, this is sometimes said “to be in the middle.” And that exposition seems to fit this text especially — partly because he treats of ancient and past [things], salvations wrought while the people was being led out of Egypt; partly because he at once recounts those [salvations], and shows [that] all — or by far the greatest part of them — befell not in Judaea or the promised land, but outside it and before it, that is, before they entered into it: “Thou hast confirmed the sea in thy strength,” and what follows. To this looks that [word] of Ezekiel (ch. 5, v. 5): “This is Jerusalem: I have set her in the midst of the nations, and the countries round about her.” Where St. Jerome [says] thus: “That Jerusalem is set in the middle of the world, the Prophet attests by these [words], showing her to be the navel of the earth. For on the parts of the East she is girt by the tract which is called Asia; on the parts of the West, by that which is called Europe; on the Meridian and South, by Libya and Africa; on the North, by the Scythians, Armenia, Persia, and all the nations of Pontus. In the middle, therefore, of the nations she is set — so that, because God was known in Judaea, and his name [was] great in Israel, all the nations round about might follow her examples [i.e. her example].”