BECEXT DISCOTERLES IN PALESTTSE IN EELATIOX TO THE BIBLE. 219 



Oriental ancient history has made it increasingly evident how 

 important was Palestine as a meeting place of all the great 

 civilisations and races of the ancient workL The tendency of a 

 few years back was to picture the patriarchs as nnaophisticated 

 bedawin in a land which was a kind of back water amidst the 

 currents of the ancient stream of ci\'ilLsation. Sow all this has 

 been altered. To quote the words of Professor George Adam 

 Smith* — 



" Where formerly the figure of the ' Father of the Faithful ' and 

 his caravans moved soleninly in high outline through an almost 

 empty world, we see ( by the aid of the monuments) embassies, armies 

 and long Hnes of traders crossing, by paths still used, the narrow 

 bridge which Palestine forms between the two great centres of early 

 civilization, the constant drift of desert tribes upon the fertile land, 

 and, within the ktter, the frequent villages, and their basy fields, 

 the mountain keeps with their Egyptian garrisons and the cities on 

 their mounds, walle«i with broad bulwarks of brick and stone." 



It was in no out-of-the-way comer of the earth that the race, 

 through whom revelation came, was Lxated by the Divine 

 purpose, but in the very turmoil of the strife of nations, buffeted 

 between the smaller nations in the immediate neighbourhood, 

 the Philistines, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Edomites, 

 the Svrians and the restless childien of the Desert, and ground 

 betwixt the interchange of blow up:»n blow between Assyria or 

 Babylonia or Grjeco- Syrian Empire of the Seleucidoe and Egypt. 

 How small and how weak a race they were in almost aU their 

 history we realise as they appear as two small states, among 

 many otters, in the monuments. And yet God prepared this 

 race as He mc»ulds the choicest indiWdual characters of His 

 saints — in the hot furnace of affliction. What they went 

 through can be clearly trace!, as we hx>k back, as a purifying 

 influence on their religion, so that — 



" We are able to look at the history of the North Semites as one 

 ^reat connected series of events co-operating towards the making 

 and discipline of Israel"! — 



an explanation of the philosophy of history which we can 

 understand if we recognise that — 



"Judaism wss incomparably the greotes: g::: :o :he world in 

 ancient times."! 



* }lod».rv. Critidim and the Pnniching of t?te Old Te^ament. 



t J. f . McCurdy, art. " Semites," Btutings Bible Dicticmar^y eit toL 



