North of Jerusalem lies a narrow district, which contains more places of interest than can, perhaps, be found in any other part of Palestine within an equal area.
This district was allotted to the tribe of Benjamin, and includes about two hundred square miles of hills, extending ten miles from Jerusalem to Bethel, and about twenty from the lower Beth Horon to the deserts above Jericho.
We are now able to draw, with a great amount of accuracy, the north boundary of Benjamin, from Bethel to Archi ('Ain 'Arîk), and thence to "Ataroth Adar, near the hill that lieth on the south side of the nether Bethoron,â exactly where we discovered the ruins of Ed Dârieh still existing. South of these limits are the famous towns Bethel, Ai, Michmash, Geba, Ramah, Nob, Mizpeh, Gibeon, with others of minor importance. To these places the present chapter is devoted.
It is clear from the Old Testament that the place where Jacob's vision occurred was Bethel or Luz, as it was originally called, on the boundary of Ephraim and Benjamin. Later traditions have been busy with the site, and (as we have seen before) the Samaritans claim that the true place is on Gerizim, while in the twelfth century the sacred rock on the Temple Hill was held to be the Beth-el, or House of God, of the narrative in Genesis.
Bethel at the present day is one of the most desolate-looking places in Palestine; not from lack of water, for it has four good springs, but from the absence of soft soil on its rocky hills. All the neighbourhood is of grey, bare stone, or white chalk. The miserable fields are fenced in with stone walls, the hovels are rudely built of stone, the hill to the east is of hard rock, with only a few scattered fig-gardens, the ancient sepulchres are cut in a low cliff, and a great reservoir south of the village is excavated in rock. The place seems as it were turned to stone, and we can well imagine that the lonely patriarch found nothing softer than a stone for the pillow under his head, when on the bare hill side he slept, and dreamed of angels.
It is very remarkable that in this narrative the word "placeâ occurs in a manner which suggests that it is used with a special significance. Jacob came not to any city, but to a "certain placeâ (Gen. xxviii. 11), the stones of which formed his pillow.