A fair interpretation of the circumstances leads to the conclusion that Penuel was not far east of Succoth. It was a fortified city, for it had a tower, which Gideon threatened to break down; and was regarded by Jeroboam as an outpost, useful in the defence of Shechem (1 Kings xii. 25). Dr Merrill finds that there is but one suitable site for it, and that is at the mounds called the “Hills of Gold,” about 4 miles east of Jordan, in the valley of the Jabbok. The mounds are very striking objects; they are covered with ruins, and on the eastern side are the remains of an ancient castle. The work is not Moslem, Christian, or Roman; the stones are unhewn blocks, and appear to date from a remote period.
A large district east and south-east of the Sea of Galilee was called Decapolis, or the region of the Ten Cities. The name occurs frequently in Josephus and other writers, and three times in the Gospels. Immediately after the conquest of Syria by the Romans (B.C. 65), ten cities appear to have been rebuilt, partially colonised, and endowed with peculiar privileges. One of the cities was Scythopolis, west of the Jordan; the others included Gadara, Geraza, Philadelphia, Pella, &c., all on the east. The region, once so populous and prosperous, is now almost without inhabitants; and the few families that do remain--in Scythopolis, Gadara, and Canatha--live amid the crumbling ruins of palaces, and in the cavernous recesses of old tombs.
Herr Schumacher has explored Abila of the Decapolis (now _Tell Abil_), and Gadara (at _Umm Keis_), and Pella (_Fahil_).
Pella--situated just opposite _Beisan_, on the other side of the Ghor--is the city to which the Christian believers fled when Titus advanced to besiege Jerusalem. Epiphanius says that “they removed because they had been forewarned by Christ himself of the approaching siege.” Seventy years later (A.D. 135) when Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as a Roman city, and changed its name to Ælia, the Christians again left it and sought refuge in this elegant city of Pella in the Jordan valley. Dr Merrill is inclined to think that Christ himself had been in Pella (for we know that he visited Perea), and met with such favour and success as to make the city a fitting asylum for his followers. Herr Schumacher, after describing a rock-cut chamber of rectangular shape, having a ceiling cut in the shape of a cross vault, with two pillars on the southern and northern walls, says, “It may be accepted as beyond doubt that we have here a cave, once inhabited by those Christian anchorites, who, in the beginning of the Christian era and during the Jewish wars, found a refuge at Pella. The flooring consisting of earth and remains of charcoal, as well as the plan of the whole, has no sepulchral character, but rather that of a habitation; the passages being used to secure air and afford a way of escape in case of persecution, for these small caves, if their door entrance was carefully shut, were hardly visible from below, and the passage still less. The entire northern slope is honeycombed with such caves.”
