=5. This castle= was seven miles east of the Dead Sea, and the ruins remain at a place about 25 miles south of the north end of the sea. It is 3,800 feet above its level and 2,507 feet above the Mediterranean. Josephus says that John the Baptist was imprisoned here, and here he must have been beheaded. The region of Peræa extended from this place to Pella, near the Jordan, about 60 miles north, and Herod Antipas was at that time ruler of all Galilee and Peræa, which included the castle Machærus.
=6. During the Saviour’s stay in Judæa=, after the Passover just spoken of, it appears that he remained for a time near the Jordan while his disciples baptized. The two preachers were therefore not far distant from each other, and the disciples of John, evidently with a spirit of rivalry, communicated the fact that greater crowds attended the ministry of Jesus.
This brought out the testimony of John to the greater glory and future progress of the gospel of Jesus. John was at this time at “Enon near Salim,” and the sites of these two places have not yet been settled.
Enon is the Greek form of the Aramaic word for “springs,” and Salim is the word for “peace,” and both of these words are frequently found in varying forms in several places.
It has been thought that the little village now called Salim, not far east of Shechem, was the site of the Scripture Salim, and that Enon was to be identified with a little ruin called Ainun, nearly eight miles northeast. But apart from the fact that these places are not near each other, they are entirely too near the very heart of the Samaritan district, Salim being only four miles east of Shechem.
It is not at all probable that John ever left Judæa, and it is exceedingly improbable that he would have gone into the Samaritan region to baptize. There is a little valley three or four miles northeast of Jerusalem which yet bears a name somewhat similar to Salim, where there are waters described by Dr. Barclay; but neither of these Biblical places has yet been satisfactorily identified.
=7. Our Saviour now left Judæa= and passed to Galilee upon the shortest road, which leads through Samaria, John 4:3. The season seems to have been in December, John 4:35, as it was “four months to harvest,” which began in April. On the way he sat down upon the well called Jacob’s, and the scene described in John 4 took place.