156 JERUSALEM-FOUNTAIN OF SILOAM. the troubling of the water of Bethesda, for we are expressly told, that "an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water."* That was a miraculous event, plainly intended to typify the Lord Jesus, the true "house of mercy;" for it is worthy of remark, that this was the only occasion in which Jesus healed only one out of a multitude of sick folk. He wished to show that he was the true pool of Bethesda. On every other occasion "he healed them all." Probably this fountain bore the same name as the Pool of Siloam, with which it is so strongly connected, and is to be regarded as Siloah's brook that flowed It was with a full remembrance of this day's pleasant visit to the Fountain of Siloam, that the following lines occurred at an after period, when stretched in our tent under the brow of Carmel. Beneath Moriah's rocky side The thirsty Arab stoops to drink O grant that I like this sweet well, And spend my life-my all-to tell We now passed further up the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and observed with interest on the sides of the Mount of Olives, immediately opposite where the Temple stood, the Jewish burying-ground. Innumerable white flat stones overspread the valley, with short Hebrew inscriptions, generally very simple and uninteresting. It is here that the old Jews desire to be buried, that they may reach bliss without needing to make their way underground to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, as others require to do who die elsewhere. They expect to arise from these tombs at the resurrection, and see Messiah among the first. How awful their disappointment when they find that they die only to pass forthwith into consuming * John v. 4. VIEW OF JERUSALEM FROM OLIVET. 157 terrors, and that they arise only to the resurrection of damnation! Disappointed hope will aggravate the wo of a poor lost man of Israel,-he thought he was at the gate of heaven, and finds himself in the porch of hell! Here we crossed the Kedron, and examined minutely the supposed tombs of Zechariah, James the Just, Jehoshaphat, and the monument called Absalom's Pillar, mentioned above. This last may possibly occupy the site of "the pillar which Absalom reared up for himself in the king's dale, and called after his own name, Absalom's Place."* The Jews believe it to be so, and cast many a stone at it in abhorrence as they pass. The original pillar seems to have been a square mass hewn out of the solid rock, about sixteen feet high. The columns, pilasters, and triglyphs which now adorn it, are evidently not Jewish work, and may be of much later origin. We left the valley, and ascended the southern limb of the Mount of Olives by the Jericho road. We wished to view Jerusalem from the spot where the Saviour is supposed to have stood when he "was come near, and beheld the city and wept over it." Mr. Nicolayson guided us to the place. The road to Jericho crosses the shoulder of the hill, so that when a traveller is approaching Jerusalem, the city is brought into full view all at once by a turn of the road. The scene is truly magnificent: the air is so clear and the view so comprehensive. The city lies, not under your feet, but almost on a level with you. You look across the valley to the temple rising full before you, and think that you could count every tower, every street, and every dwelling. Jesus saw all this before him, and its guilty people were themselves as fully open to his view in that wonderful moment, when his tears testified his unutterable love to Israel, and his words declared their fearful doom. Oh, that we could stand and look on Israel now, with our Master's love and bowels of compassion! We stood awhile to realize that myste riously interesting moment, and then rode on towards Bethany. The road slopes gently down the other side of the hill, and you are immediately out of sight of Jerusalem. Climbing another shoulder of the hill, and looking back, we obtained another view of the city, but a distant one; not the one spoken of in the gospel, where it is said, "when He came near." The road is very rocky, often indeed worn out of the solid limestone. * 2 Sam. xviii. 18. + Luke xix. 41. 158 BETHANY-TOMB OF LAZARUS. Descending and leaving the Jericho road, we came quite suddenly upon Bethany, called by the Arabs Azarieh, from the name of Lazarus. We found this evermemorable village to be very like what we could have imagined it. It lies almost hidden in a small ravine of Mount Olivet, so much so that from the height it cannot be seen. It is embosomed in fruit-trees, especially figs and almonds, olives and pomegranates. The ravine in which it lies is terraced, and the terraces are covered either with fruit-trees or waving grain. There are not many houses, perhaps about twenty, inhabited, but there are many marks of ancient ruins. The house of Lazarus was pointed out to us, a substantial building, probably a tower in former days, and selected to bear the name of the House of Lazarus by traditionists, who did not know how else than by his worldly eminence such a man could draw the special regard of the Lord Jesus. They did not know that Christ loveth freely. The sepulchre called the Tomb of Lazarus attracted more of our attention. We lighted our tapers, and descended twenty-six steps cut in the rock to a chamber deep in the rock, having several niches for the dead. Whether this be the very tomb where Lazarus lay four days, and which yielded up its dead at the command of Jesus, it is impossible to say. The common objection that it is too deep seems entirely groundless, for there is nothing in the narrative to intimate that the tomb was on a level with the ground, and besides it seems not unlikely that there was another entrance to the tomb farther down the slope. A stronger objection is, that the tomb is in the immediate vicinity of the village, or actually in it, but it is possible that the modern village occupies ground a little different from the ancient one. However this may be, there can be no doubt that this is "Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha, nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off."* How pleasing are all the associations that cluster around it! Perhaps there was no scene in the Holy Land which afforded us more unmingled enjoyment: we even fancied that the curse that every where rests so visibly upon the land had fallen more lightly here. In point of situation, nothing could have come up more completely to our previous imagination of the place to which Jesus delighted to retire at evening from the bustle of the city, and the vexations of the unbelieving multitudes-sometimes traversing the *John xi. 1, 18. |