Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 edition. Excerpt: ... but much more steep and clearly denned from the hill country of Judah on the east. The towns of the maritime plain are given in Joshua xv. 33--47, where Shephelah is rendered "the valley," and are there divided into four groups: --1st. Those in the north and north-east, fourteen cities in all. 2nd. Those which, so far as they have been identified, lay in the central south-western part of Judah, sixteen in number. 3rd. A group which clung rather to the western face of the hill country, and were often situated on the edge of the mountain range, of which nine are enumerated; and 4th, the Philistian cities in the extreme south-west, of which only three are enumerated, Ashkelon and Gath being omitted. Besides these, lying on the coast to the north was the portion of Dan, to which tribe fifteen cities of the Plain of Sharon were appropriated (Josh. xix. 40--46). We shall most naturally proceed with our investigations by passing from the south country into Philistia, where, leaving Gerar, the old seat of the Caphtorim or Philistines, the first city which arrests our attention is Gaza. There are not many places of greater interest in Southern Palestine. Its frontier town, Gaza, also written sometimes in A.V. as in Deut. ii. 23, 'Azzah, the Hebrew being identical, was the key of the road to Egypt. Before the days of Abraham it was the border city of the Canaanites (Gen. x. 19). Along that road the Pharaohs, Shishak, and Necho invaded Israel by the way of the Philistines. By the same road, too, one Eastern despot after another--Assyrian, Chaldean, Persian, and SyroGrecian, marched to win the rich prize of the Valley of the Nile. The wonderful discoveries and exhumations of Egyptian records within the last few years supply us with information as to...
