Part 2 (1/2)
If this place were Mizpah, then here Jephthah lived; and here, when he went out to fight against the Ammonites, he made the vow to sacrifice whatsoever should come forth out of the doors of his house to meet him on his return from the battle, if the Lord would only give him the victory. The battle was fought, and Jephthah triumphed. The glad news reached his home; and out from his house rushed his daughter, his only child, with timbrels and with dances, to meet her hero-father, not knowing the nature of his vow made on the eve of the battle. Her presence caused the brave warrior to tremble with horror and rend his clothes when he remembered his vow. The daughter was dismayed--instead of a smile of joy from her father she read her doom in his blanched and contorted face. And somewhere on these hills round about the voice of wailing arose for two months from many maidens because Jephthah must fulfill his rash vow by sacrificing his only child. But he did unto her according to his word; and annually thereafter for a period of four days these hills resounded with the voice of weeping--the weeping of the maidens of Mizpah over the sad fate of Jephthah's daughter. (Judges 11.)
Farther on we ascend a high ridge and then begin our descent into the southern branch of the wady of Ajlun. After winding about for some time among the rocks and brush in the dry bed of this wady we finally halt at Ain Jenneh, a good, strong fountain issuing from under a great rock.
We are yet in the upper reaches of the wady and near the present village of Ajlun. Here we lunch and rest an hour.
Some authorities identify this region as the place where was the ”wood of Ephraim.” That being true, it is the place where Absalom lost his life. Certain it is, even to-day, that to leave the little path that we are following would mean to become hopelessly entangled in jungles of p.r.i.c.kly oak and other growth. Even in the path it is with difficulty that I keep my garments from being torn from me.
If this be the location of the ”wood of Ephraim,” then here the forces of Absalom under Amasa and the armies of David under Joab fought in those trying days of David's exile. Only a few miles away, at Mahanaim, David sent out his men, commanding that they touch not the young man.
Then he waited for the news of the conflict. In the thickets of Gilead the first ”battle of the wilderness” was fought. It was a decisive engagement. Joab's veterans of many wars were too strong for the rebel's army. Absalom sought safety in flight, but in trying to ride hurriedly through the wild tangle his head caught in the branches of a great oak, and before he could extricate himself, Joab had found him and thrust him through the heart; then Joab's ten armor-bearers encompa.s.sed the unfortunate victim and finished the deadly work. And then, though Absalom had reared for himself a beautiful monument in the king's dale at Jerusalem, they took his body from the tree and threw it into a pit near by and made a great heap of stones over it. There was no weeping at the grave of Absalom.
With the death of Absalom the rebellion was at an end; but David's heart was broken. He waited at the gate of the city, more interested in the welfare of his son than in the success of his army. Swift runners approach! In answer to his question, ”Is the young man safe?” he hears reply that pierces his heart like a dagger. Up to his chamber over the gate the king slowly pa.s.sed weeping and bent with grief, and as he went he said, ”O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! Would G.o.d I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
A poet's conception of David's great grief on hearing of the death of his son is portrayed in the following lines of N. P. Willis:
Alas! my n.o.ble boy! that thou shouldst die!
Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair!
That Death should settle in thy glorious eye, And leave his stillness in thy cl.u.s.tering hair!
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb?
My proud boy, Absalom!
Cold is thy brow, my son! and I am chill, As to my bosom I have tried to press thee How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill,
Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee, And hear thy sweet ”MY FATHER!” from these dumb And cold lips, Absalom!
But death is on thee. I shall hear the gush Of music, and the voices of the young; And life will pa.s.s me in the mantling blush, And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung; But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come To meet me, Absalom!
And oh! when I am stricken, and my heart, Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken.
How will its love for thee, as I depart, Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token!
It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom, To see thee, Absalom!
And now, farewell! 'Tis hard to give thee up With death so like a gentle slumber on thee-- And thy dark sin! Oh! I could drink the cup, If from this woe its bitterness had won thee.
May G.o.d have called thee, like a wanderer, home, My lost boy, Absalom!
But this fountain! What birds and beasts here drank undisturbed before man came to a.s.sert his lords.h.i.+p! What mult.i.tudes of people here have drunk from the days before Israel down to the present time--the hunter, the tiller of the soil, the grape-gatherer, the shepherd with his flocks, the warrior and his chief,--all rejoiced and rested here, and were refreshed and strengthened by the water.
Almost with reverence we drink again; then we remount our horses and proceed along the wady past the village of Ajlun where an Arab joins us and guides us on over fertile patches of ground and through olive groves until we reach the modern town of Coefrinje, a town that probably contains several thousand inhabitants. It is in the midst of an olive grove well up on the side of the mountains. Here, although it is scarcely past the middle of the afternoon, we stop for the night. It is too far to the next village to risk going ahead--the way is none too safe, even by day.
Several times to-day I could clearly distinguish the remains of old Roman roads, well paved, and with curbing arrangement excellently preserved. What vast sums of money and what great amount of labor must have been expended on these old high-ways of the time when this territory was occupied by the Romans! And where Rome walked she left her path well made, and she left the impress of her thought in rock-paved road, or in the lasting marble of her pillared temples and carven tombs.
”By the Watch-Tower”
CHAPTER VI.
Soon after entering the village of Coefrinje my dragoman had the rare good fortune to find a former acquaintance, but whom he did not know to be in those mountains. His name was Elias Mitry, who, with his wife, had come up from Jerusalem to do missionary work under the auspices of the Church of England. Although he was a native of Palestine and talked very poor English, yet he offered us a welcome to his humble home than which no more royal was accorded us anywhere. The meeting with my dragoman was an exhibition of genuine joy, and he seemed equally pleased to have me in his home; especially did he consider it an honor to be my host when my dragoman told him that he was escorting a ”school-master” through the land. In that land it seems that the teacher is almost reverenced because of his profession, while, it may be said by way of contrast, in some sections of my home land he is scarcely respected because of his profession. Indeed, I was treated as a guest of honor; the best that the home afforded was at my service.
Stuffed cuc.u.mbers, figs, olives, pomegranates, and what, for want of a better name, I call ”congealed grape-juice,”--all these were placed before me when in the early evening they aided my guide in serving supper.
We spent little over four hours in the saddle to-day, so I am not wearied, and I can give interested attention to the surroundings. And there is much to interest me here. For, while the name ”Coefrinje” is not mentioned in the Bible, nor is its site definitely identified with the location of any biblical city, yet there is much of Bible story centered at points within five miles of this town.