Tent Work in Palestine — Part 211

The Crusaders had other traditions connected with this neighbourhood. The grave of Abner was then shown within a church in Hebron, probably the same place now found in the house of a Moslem. The grave of Esau was fixed in a suburb of the town, as also those of Adam and Judah, which have now disappeared. The open green, west of the town, was known as the "Field of Damascus,” apparently because owned by the Sultan of Damascus. The place where Cain killed Abel was a little farther south, and on the north was the cave in which Adam and Eve lived for a century, which appears to have been the modern rock-hewn spring called 'Ain-el-Judeideh, "the excavated fountain,” which is covered by an arch and reached by steps. Here Adam mourned for Abel, and hence the spot is called by some chroniclers the Vale of Tears; here also Adam was made of the red earth of the place. Hebron was considered to have obtained its name Kirjath-Arba, "city of four,” from the four patriarchs, including Adam--an explanation derived from the Rabbinical commentators, but not in accordance with the reason given in the Bible, "And the name of Hebron before was Kirjath-Arba, which Arba was a great man among the Anakim” (Josh. xiv. 15).

On our last visit to Hebron we were shown an ancient Jewish tomb with nine graves, or _kokim_, close to 'Ain-el-Judeideh, and to this we obtained the curious name Kabr Hebrûn, "the grave of Hebron.” We did not, however, learn the origin of the title, or the source of the tradition. A little higher up the hill is a ruined monastery, in a corner of which the tomb of Jesse is shown.

The Oak (or plain, as our version renders it) of Mamre has been shown at various times in different directions. Jerome places it at the modern Râmeh, where is a fine unfinished stone enclosure with a large well. The walls measure 162 feet north and south by 214 east and west, and one stone is fifteen feet long. A little farther east the remains of Constantine's basilica are distinguishable, and the great enclosure may perhaps be the market where the Jews were sold by Hadrian, after the fall of Bether.

The present site of the Oak is farther south, and the magnificent tree stands among the vineyards north-west of Hebron. It is called Ballûtet Sebta, "the oak of rest,” and has branches fifty feet long, one of which was broken by the snow in 1857. This Oak is thought to be more than two hundred years old, but cannot be the one seen by Sir John Maundeville, for it is covered with leaves, whereas that which was shown to Sir John he calls "the dry tree.” "They say,” he continues, "that it has been there since the beginning of the world, and that it was once green, and bore leaves till the time that Our Lord died on the Cross, and then it dried, and so did all the trees that were then in the world.” Jerome, however, is more moderate in his assertions, and speaking of the northern site of Mamre at Râmeh, distant two miles from modern Hebron, and now called "Abraham's House” by the Jews, he says that the Oak was still visible, and worshipped by the peasantry in the days of Hadrian, but disappeared during his own time. We have thus no certainty as to the position of Mamre or of the Oak, which Josephus places only six furlongs from Hebron (B. J. iv. 9, 7).