Facts about the Holy Land by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 29, 1871

Facts about the Holy Land.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

To ME the following article was most interesting, and it strengthened my faith in the Bible. I think it will do others good. It is from a magazine, “The Holy Land,” Chicago, Ill. D. M. CANRIGHT.

In making an exploration of the Holy Land, there is nothing that so interests the Christian traveler, as to observe the abounding light that the country of the Bible sheds upon the Bible itself. Viewed from this standpoint, Palestine is a great “Chamber of Imagery,” in which every object may be used as a key to interpret Scripture. Every tree that grows there; every flower that colors hillside or plain; every bird that attunes the morning echoes; every star that glitters from heaven to suggest the glory beyond; every fountain whose water revives the thirsty traveler—everything has a voice to explain this volume, and open hidden allusions, making “dark things light, and crooked things straight.” “Verily,” cries aloud the enthusiastic traveler when he first realizes this great fact, “Verily the God of the Land is the God of the Book. He has preserved the Land, that our faith may be thoroughly confirmed in the Book.”

To make this matter available to the Christian student, a few of these remarkable evidences are brought forward as witnesses upon the stand.

I. The birds of the Holy Land are tuneful witnesses to many of the statements of the biblical narrative. Still the stork “knoweth the appointed time of her coming; the eagle mounteth up in the clear, blue sky; the sparrow “chatters” upon the housetop, and is sold, “five for a farthing;” the young ravens cry aloud to God for their food; the fowls of the air that “sow not, neither reap, nor gather into barns,” are fed by our Heavenly Father. Other references, under this head, might be greatly multiplied.

II. The clothing of the people in the Holy Land is still of the same fashions worn in distant times. Customs of dress, so whimsical and eccentric in our country, are as settled in the orient as the eternal hills—they never change. And so the girdle of Judah, the sandals of the Gibeonites, the mantle of Elijah, the turban of Daniel, the cloak of Paul, and the seamless robe of Jesus, may all be met with any day, in the streets of Jerusalem—witnesses to the marvelous accuracy of the word.

III. The climate of the Holy Land sufficiently confirms the statements of the Holy Page. When “the south wind blows,” there is heat (Luke 12:55); when a cloud arises in the west, there is rain (Luke 12:54). The oriental year is still divided into seasons, by the fall of the early and the late rains; and any marked deficiency in the rainfalls of a season, is still followed by terrible droughts, accompanied by famine, disease, and death.

IV. The diseases of the Holy Land are of the same types as those that existed in scriptural days, and so bear witness to scriptural truth. Around the Sea of Galilee, fever abounds, such as prostrated the little daughter of Jairus, and the mother-in-law of Peter. At Bethany sudden and fatal diseases are experienced, like that which overcame Lazarus, whom “Jesus loved.” Sunstrokes are common upon the plains, as when the son of the Shunamite woman fell under its influence. Leprosy, in its utmost loathsomeness, is as prevalent as when Moses made it a type of mortal sin, and Jesus Christ of his power to heal. Blindness is fearfully frequent. In the town of Lydda, one-third the inhabitants are blind. And the blind still sit by the wayside begging, clamoring for aid in those pitiable notes that moved the pitying heart of their Lord.

V. The domestic life of the inhabitants of Palestine, as it was so vividly depicted by the Bible writers, has remained substantially unchanged for forty centuries, and so bears its part of Bible testimony. In the sultry hour of noon, the people still sit under “their own vine and fig tree,” and sleep at night in booths upon the house tops. The bread they eat is still that “daily bread” for which Jesus taught us to pray—thin, small loaves, five making a meal, baked once a day and always eaten fresh. New wine is still kept in new bottles, and so “both are preserved.” People recline at the table while eating, as they did at the Last Supper of Jesus. The sound of the grinding is still heard through the quiet night, the millstones small and always turned by women, as in the olden time. The salt used is still of that sort that easily loses its savor and cannot be salted again. The virgins at the weddings still go forth by night, with lighted lamps to meet the bridegroom. And the dead, at the funerals, are still carried without a coffin, upon an open bier, amid the death songs of the minstrels and the lamentations of the mourning women.

VI. The farmers of the Holy Land still use the tools of labor, and practice the systems of husbandry, to which so many references are made upon the Sacred Page. Traveling there, we see Cain a “tiller of the earth,” and Elisha, “plowing with a yoke of oxen.” Whenever the ravages of war are intermitted for a season, the ground yields with its ancient abundance. Then “the mountains drop down sweet wine,” as in the poetical figures of Joel, and “the hills flow with milk.” The olive-tree still “sucks its oil from the flinty rock,” and the honey-bee stores up her luscious treasures in “the hollow rock.”

Then the glowing words of Josephus are literally verified. Then the descriptions of Moses become again true, wherein he describes old Canaan as “a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates; a land of oil, olive, and honey; a land in which the inhabitants eat bread without scarceness; there is no lack of anything in it.”

“The sower going forth to sow,” still scatters a portion of his seed among “the thorns,” and a portion upon “the rocks,” and a portion “by the wayside,” where the “fowls of the air come and devour it up.” And still that which falls upon good ground “brings forth, some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred-fold.”

VII. The geography of the Holy Land is a solemn witness that He who created the country inspired the Book. The traveler cannot fail to experience the sensation that he is standing upon “the old ways,” the ways of God. All the sacred places are there, there just where they should be, to answer the requirements of the Holy Narrative. There is Bethlehem, you can almost fancy you see the Eastern Star pointing to it, the birth-place of Jesus. And there are Bethany, Bethel, Jericho, Jerusalem, Joppa, Shiloh, Shechem, Samaria, Nain, Nazareth, Tiberias, Capernaum, Dan, Damascus, Gibal, Sidon, Sarepta, Tyre, Acre, Cesarea, Gaza, Beersheba, Hebron. Looking more closely we find Gethsemane, where Jesus was betrayed, and Aceldama, bought with the price of that treason; Siloam and Gihon. All the memorable localities may be found, affecting our minds like well-remembered features upon the countenances of the well beloved.

The fountains are there that used to slake the thirst of prophets, priests, and kings; that of Elisha, near Jericho; and of David, near Hebron; and of Joab, at Gibeon; the wells at Bethlehem and Shechem, and many others from which the traveler rejoices to drink and be refreshed.

The mountains, stern and awful in their sublimity, stand as monuments of God’s truth. Nebo, whence Moses gathered his last view before he went up to the heavenly hills; Hermon, glittering with his diadem of unmelted snows; Carmel, looking westward over the broad, blue sea; Tabor, Gilboa, Ebal, Gerizim, glorious summits that afforded God’s prophets their best images of his grandeur and majesty; all are there, faithful to their trust, speaking witnesses to Bible truth, as they will be to the end of time.

VIII. The heavens of the Holy Land still “declare the glory of God,” as when they inspired the soul of the psalmist. In that “blue, ethereal sky,” “the Seven Stars and Orion” still wheel and glitter as in the times of Amos; “Arcturus and the chambers of the South,” as in the times of Job. The promise of “a countless seed” to Abraham, is sublimely illustrated by a view of that oriental sky, crowded and dotted and powdered with stars.

IX. The houses of the people in the Holy Land bear their witness to the accuracy of the ancient text. Everything about them—the “foundation upon a rock,” the roof, movable as in the miracle of the paralytic man—“the guest-chamber upon the wall, as in the narrative of Elisha—the “Court”—the “lattice”—the “needle’s eye,” that the loaded camel cannot pass—everything illustrates the biblical account so vividly that when we enter one of those houses we almost look for the Samuel, the David, the Isaiah, the Peter, who once occupied such dwellings.

X. And even the insects of the Holy Land still bear a part as witnesses to the divine truth. The scorpion explains the parental figure of Jesus, as well as the terrible image of John. The locust in his year of visitation, still devastates the country as in the time of Joel; before them, the “land is as the garden of Eden, behind them is a desolate wilderness.”

XI. Nature, who works everywhere with unvarying laws, has her story to tell upon this subject. Still her “lily of the field” is arrayed in a splendor that the glory of King Solomon could in nowise rival. Still her serpent is an emblem of wisdom, her ant of industry, her dove of innocency. Still her grain of mustard seed in her quick climate and congenial soil, becomes so great a tree that “the fowls of the air lodge in the branches of it.” Still the husks, such as the prodigal son did eat, hang profusely upon the carob-tree, affording a rich food for swine; the tares grow among the wheat; the stone, easily pulverized, covers the traveler’s feet with dust, as it did the feet of Jesus and his followers; earthquakes still afflict the land, sometimes, as in January, 1837, producing calamities as frightful as that in “the days of Uzziah, king of Judah;” sometimes less severe, as those of the crucifixion and resurrection of nature’s Lord. But nothing less than a volume suffices for a theme like this.

XII. The seas of the Holy Land boom forth their chapter of our great story, with mighty voices. The Dead Sea lies awful in its silver basin, a tell-tale of Jehovah’s anger. The Sea of Galilee is subject to sudden storms of wind such as terrified the timid fishermen. Off the coast of Joppa, the Lord still sends “great winds.” Then the “mighty tempests” arise as in the flight of Jonah and the poetry of David.

XIII. The shepherd still watches his flock by night, as on the birth-night of the Son of Man. Still he goes before them; and calls them by name; and they know his voice; and they follow him; and “he maketh them to lie down in green pastures, and leadeth them beside the still waters,” all as in those affecting passages which our children have by heart.

XIV. The state of society has preserved unnumbered testimonies to Bible truth. We touch only upon a few. Laborers still “stand in the market-place,” waiting to be hired; and their wages are paid them at the close of each day as Moses enjoined, and as Jesus described in his beautiful parable. Merchants and traders still use the balances of deceit, wicked balances, “a bag of deceitful weights, and scanty measure,” as charged against them by the prophet Micah; hatred and malice still abound as in the time of the Maccabees, when “the wolf had no fellowship with the lamb, nor the hyena with the dog, neither the rich with the poor.”

XV. The very ruins into which opulent and popular cities have fallen, when we dig into them and explore them carefully, yield sure testimonies to the verity of the Bible. In their stony bosoms are the very objects needed to make our case complete; the penny still bearing “the image and superscription of Caesar,” the mites, two to the farthing, such as “a certain poor widow” cast into the Temple Treasury, and “the piece of silver,” such as that which Peter found in the mouth of the fish, and Judas Iscariot received as the price of treason.

XVI. And finally the trees of the Holy Land still “clap their hands,” overjoyed at the privilege of coming into the witness box, when the truth of God is in peril. Upon great Lebanon the cedar rears his lofty top as in the reign of Solomon; upon the slopes of Olivet, the olive tree bends under its weight of fatness, and justifies the ancient title of the mountain; along the sea-coast the palm tree, most graceful of trees, stands, a beautiful shaft, the psalmist’s best emblem of an upright man; and far and near, from Dan to Beersheba, “the fig tree, while his branch is yet tender, sends forth his leaves,” precisely as it did when the divine finger pointed it out as the subject of an inimitable moral, so many centuries ago.

And so, for volumes, this subject may be expanded. But enough has been advanced to prove that every fact, gathered in the Holy Land, is a living monitor, a sure witness, having a tongue of its own to tell God’s truth with fullness, greatness, energy, and a great blaze of light. To read the Holy Bible in the Holy Land is, to the pious believer, a treat worth whole years of ordinary experience.