“AUNT EDITH,” said Charley, "can you tell us anything about the Sea of Galilee? It seems to be called by so many names, that I am often puzzled when I try to understand just where things in the Bible happened.”
“Oh, and I do so want to know what it is like, and whether it has beautiful mountains round it, like those lakes we saw in Wales last summer," cried May.
“I think I must try to answer Charley's question first," said their aunt, "and then, May, I will tell you what travelers say about the lake itself. The whole province of Galilee has been well called ‘the country of our Lord,’ for His early years were spent at Nazareth, and it was in the small villages bordering on the lake that He ‘went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil.’ This alone would be enough to make the name of Galilee a sacred name indeed to the Christian; but you must remember that it sounded very differently in Jewish ears, and in the time of our Lord to be a Galilean was by no means an honorable distinction. The country was first called ‘Gelil Haggoyim’—Land of the Heathen; for, from long before the days of Joshua, a Gentile people had dwelt there.”
“But did not the Jews try to turn them out?”
“Yes, indeed they did, Charley; but there these ancient tribes remained, and the country was still called ‘Galilee of the Gentiles.’ It increased in size as more strangers came into the land, so that in the time of our Lord it occupied a third part of Palestine. The population was then very mixed; the Greeks and Egyptians had built and fortified noble cities—Sephoris, which Josephus tells us was in his time its largest city, and the seaport, Ptolemais, which has been called the ‘Dover of Galilee.’ These cities were full of pagan temples, and foreign governors lived there, protected by garrisons of Roman troops.”
“But did no Jews live there, Auntie?”
“Oh, yes, May; don't you remember that Nazareth, and Capernaum, and Cana were in Galilee?" said Charley. "But, Aunt Edith, you haven't told me yet about the different names of the lake.”
“It was called in the time of Moses the Sea of Chinnereth from a town of that name, the site of which is now unknown. We next hear of it as the Lake of Gennesareth. This name, which means ‘Garden of Sharon,’ was taken from the fertile plain lying near, the wonderful beauty of which is described by Josephus. Later still it was called the Sea of Galilee, from the province of which it formed the boundary.”
“I think. I remember that Tiberias was one of its names," said Charley; "it says in the last chapter of St. John that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples at the Sea of Tiberias.”
“Yes; Herod Antipas—the same King Herod before whom the Lord Jesus was brought for trial—built a new city on the western side of the lake, and called it Tiberias, in honor of the Roman emperor. This city has long since fallen into decay, but at the time when it was Herod's capital it was so important as to give its name to the lake. The Arabs still call it Tibaria, and the only name by which it is now known to the country-people is ‘Bahr Tibaria,’ Lake of Tiberias.”
“I am glad it has the same name now as it had in the time when Jesus was here, Auntie," said May; "but," added she, thoughtfully, “I don't remember a word in the Gospels about Sephoris or Ptolemais, or about His going to the City of Tiberias.”
“It is not likely that the Lord ever entered these stately foreign cities. He, who was meek and lowly in heart, would have been a Stranger indeed amid the pomp and luxury which made them so famous. You must remember, too, that He said, ‘I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ The Jews lived in villages of their own, for the foreign customs of the Greeks and Romans gave great offense to them, and the idolatrous worship practiced by these strangers made everything connected with them ‘unclean’ to a strict Jew. He could not eat or drink at the same table with a Greek, or a Roman, or an Egyptian; in fact, everything he touched in a Gentile town defiled him. The little hill-side villages of Nazareth, Cana, or Nain, and those bordering on the lake, as Magdala, Bethsaida, or Capernaum, were the scenes of the Lords teaching, of His miracles, of His ceaseless acts of divine power and love.”
“I suppose the Lord Jesus saw those splendid foreign cities just from a distance when He was in Peter's boat on the lake," said May; "but can people go to Capernaum and Bethsaida now?"
“You remember how the Lord spake of those cities—so favored, yet so guilty—in which most of His mighty works were done, comparing them with Sodom and Gomorrah. It is remarkable that so entirely have the chief scenes of His ministry perished from off the face of the earth, that at this present time learned men are busy trying to find out as nearly as they can the places where Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida once stood.”
“Perhaps they may dig up some stones with writing on them, if they hunt about where any ruins are to be found.”
“No inscription has yet been discovered, Charley, which enables us to say with certainty where any of them stood. Major Wilson thinks he has found the site of Capernaum, which was called the Lord's ‘own city,’ in Tell Ham, where there are extensive ruins a regular cemetery has been discovered there, and a remarkable Jewish synagogue—‘the white synagogue’—built of beautiful limestone. Two miles north of Tell Hûm lie some ruins which the Arabs call Kerazeh. Here, too, are remains of a synagogue, and this is believed to be, the ancient Chorazin. If this is the case, the site of Bethsaida is further north, just where the Jordan falls into the lake. I think you will be interested in hearing of some tombs which Captain Warren found at Tell Hûm—one is made of limestone blocks, and is below the surface of the ground; the other, large enough to hold a great many bodies, is above ground, and bears marks of having been whitewashed within and without.”
“That must have been one of the very tombs of which the Lord spoke-the 'whited sepulchers,' which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but are within full of dead men's bones. How dreadful it must have been to the proud Pharisees to be compared to such things! But now, Aunt Edith, will you tell us about the Sea of Galilee—the very sea over which Jesus came walking in the stormy night to the poor disciples, and on the shore of which He showed Himself to them after He was risen, and asked Peter three times, ‘Lovest thou Me?’—Oh, how I should like to see it!”
“It must look very different now that the country is all deserted, though of course the lake itself remains the same: low brown hills still surround it as of old, and beyond them the snowy peak of Mount Hermon rises, sharply defined against the clear Eastern sky. On the north side the Jordan enters—a swift, muddy stream, which can be traced far out into the lake, as, you remember, we used to trace the Rhone waters in the Lake of Geneva. There are beautiful little bays there, and at Gennesareth Major Wilson describes the beach as ‘pearly white, with myriads of minute shells; on one side washed by the limpid waters of the lake, and on the other shut in by a fringe of oleanders, rich in May with their blossoms red and white.’ He says he found it ‘difficult to realize that the borders of the lake, now so silent and desolate, were once enlivened by the busy hum of towns and villages, and that on its waters hostile navies contended for supremacy.’ The waters are said to be bright, clear, and sweet, and their surface is often blackened by shoals of fish.”
“Ah! how long ago it is since Andrew and Peter were casting their nets there," said Charley, "when Jesus called them to Him, that they might become fishers of men.”
“I think it must have been in one of those beautiful little bays by the shore that James and John were, sitting in their boat with their father mending their nets, when Jesus called them too," said May. "How kind it was of Him to care to have them with Him! It was very wonderful, wasn't it, Auntie?”
“We may well wonder at the love which led Him, who ‘knew what was in man,’ to call around Himself those who, though deeply attached to their Master, were yet to grieve Him so often by their faithlessness, and to forsake Him at last. But I should like you to find one or two of the places of which we have been speaking upon the map, and then, perhaps, you will each tell me of any particular scenes in the life of our Lord which you remember as having taken place there, for, you know, the shores of that lake, upon whose waters He trod, as you were reminding us, May, are associated beyond all other places, even of the Holy Land, with His ministry on earth.”
“I know Nazareth must be in Galilee,” said May, "for that was where the Lord Jesus was brought up. Nurse was teaching Freddy a verse beginning like this -
‘Savior, to Thy cottage home
Once the daylight used to come;
Thou hast often seen it break
Brightly o'er that eastern lake,’
and I said, ‘I wonder what lake that was,’ but she could not tell.”
“Yes, May, here it is”—and Charley pointed to the map. “I remember you told us, Aunt Edith, that the streets of Nazareth are so narrow and crooked that a traveler, when riding along, found himself upon a house-top. Is there anything very interesting in the town now?”
“The Nazareth of to-day is described as beautifully situated upon one of the hills of the Lebanon range, upon the place where the ancient village stood. The most interesting thing to travelers is the town well, the only place which they can be quite sure is unchanged, since the times of which we read in the Gospels. I remember that one writer says, ‘The Child Jesus must have trodden the path down to it, coming with His mother, as now the women, with their rolls of silver coins, go with their water-jars on their heads, their little ones trotting by their sides.’”
“But what can the rolls of coins be for?”
“I should have told you, Charley, that the women of Nazareth wear cloth caps covered with silver coins—some few are rich enough to afford gold ones—and a fringe of coins hangs across their foreheads: the weight of silver which even little girls will wear upon their heads is astonishing.”
“You spoke about Mount Hermon," said Charley; "and here it is, Aunt Edith, at the south of the lake.”
“You will find Mount Tabor, the other mountain of Galilee, a little further north; it is a green hill with a rounded top, the sides dotted with trees, forming a striking contrast with the snow-clad Hermon," said his aunt.
“I know those two mountains are spoken of together—I think it must be in one of the Psalms—'Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in Thy Name.' I should like Hermon best, for I remember how beautiful it was to see the white snow-mountains in Switzerland, looking so pure and cold, when all the grass in the valleys was brown with the hot sun.”
“Mount Hermon has been called the Mont Blanc of Palestine, May," replied her aunt. "It must have been a great refreshment to the inhabitants of the once busy, populous district of Galilee to look upon those beautiful mountains; and we can believe that the eyes of the Lord Himself, as He
‘Wandered as a homeless Stranger
In the world His hands had made,’
often rested upon that snowy peak, piercing the clear blue Syrian sky.”
"It seems to me, now I think of it," said Charley, "that almost all the Life of the Lord Jesus was spent in Galilee. You see, He was so many years at Nazareth, and then He went to be baptized by John the Baptist in Jordan, and then came back to Galilee again, and began to preach.”
“You must not forget, Charley, that St. John tells us of our Lord's earlier ministry in Judea and Samaria.”
“Oh, yes," said May; "it was when Jesus was weary with His journey, as He was coming back to Galilee, that He sat on the well at Sychar: see, that is between Judea and Galilee. I should like to know, Auntie, if there are any beautiful flowers growing near the Sea of Galilee, besides those oleanders which are like a fringe to it.”
“It depends upon the time of the year. In spring, all is green and lovely, and the scarlet anemones show like stars among the grass; the gay tulips, too, and tall blue iris may be found; but the scorching sun of summer soon parches the land, and makes all brown and bare.”
“Every now and then it says that Jesus and His disciples departed into a desert place; does that mean the real wilderness, or only a part of the country where there were no houses?”
“I will read to you what a very interesting writer says of these ‘desert’ or ‘solitary’ places, Charley. ‘A remarkable feature,’ he tells us, ‘of the Lake of Gennesaret was that it was closely surrounded with desert solitudes. These desert places, thus close at hand on the table-lands or in the ravines of the eastern and western ranges, gave opportunities of retirement for rest or prayer. Rising up early in the morning while it was yet dark, or passing over to the other side in a boat, He sought these solitudes, sometimes alone, sometimes with His disciples.’”
“It was to a mountain, Aunt Edith, that Jesus went to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God; do you think that was Mount Tabor?”
“I believe no particular mountain is meant, May, but rather the hill country, what we should call the mountain-side. But I see you are poring over the map, Charley; do you want to find any particular place?”
“I was trying to find Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter; Philip came from it, too; but I see there are two Bethsaidas—look, Aunt Edith—one near Capernaum, and one at the very head of the lake, just where the Jordan flows into it.”
“The name of both towns means ‘house of fish,’ and both were near the lake. Western Bethsaida was the town of Philip, Andrew, and Peter, and was probably close to the water's edge. The eastern town, Bethsaida-Julias, was growing into importance in the time of our Lord, for Herod had rebuilt it, and given it a new name to please the Emperor Augustus, whose daughter was called Julia. It was outside this town that the healing of the blind man took place.”
“Oh, I remember, he ‘saw men as trees walking,’ until Jesus touched his eyes again, and then he saw everything clearly," said May. You said we might try to remember things which happened at the different places," she continued, "and I should like to remember that scene when the thousands of people sat down upon the green grass, and were fed with five loaves and two fishes; but I can't tell where it happened.”
“By comparing the accounts of the feeding of the five thousand given in the Gospels, we find that the ‘desert place’ to which our Lord invited His disciples to come ‘apart and rest awhile’ was near this modern Bethsaida. They left Capernaum, crossed the lake, and landed somewhere near the mouth of the Jordan, where the grassy plain was covered with the rich verdure of spring, for it was the time of the Passover, about April. If you refer to the sixth chapter of St. John, May, you will see why it was that such great multitudes, when they saw the boat in which the Lord and His disciples had set sail leaving Capernaum, ran round to the north of the lake, and met them as they landed.”
“I have found it," said Charley, "and the lake is called ‘Tiberias’ here. The multitude followed Jesus because they saw His miracles which He did on them that were diseased; and Jesus went up into a mountain. I suppose that means the hill-side, as you said, Aunt Edith?”
“Yes; we must imagine the crowds of people assembled in the plain below. How beautiful are the words in which St. Mark tells us that the Lord Jesus, when ‘He saw much people, was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.’—things concerning the kingdom of God, St. Luke tells us—and healed them that had need of healing. Probably many among the crowds were pilgrims traveling from Northern Galilee to keep the Passover at Jerusalem.”
“I daresay that was why so many people were ‘coming and going,’ so that Jesus and His disciples had not time to eat. We should be quite vexed to be followed and interrupted like that," said May, "but the Lord Jesus was different in every way from us.”
“You may well say that the blessed Son of God, as He passed through this world, was unlike us, May. Do you remember His words after He had been talking—His brief hour of rest broken, for He could not rest where sin and misery were—to the Samaritan woman, when His disciples prayed Him to eat the food which they had brought?”
“He said, ‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work,’" said May, reverently.
“I was thinking how much two hundred pennyworth of bread would have been," said Charley, "for I know their pence were worth more than ours.”
“When Philip spoke of the two hundred denarii, he wished to show how large a sum of money would still be insufficient to meet the wants of the multitude. A, penny a day was the wages of a day laborer, and was equal to about sevenpence-halfpenny of our money. Two hundred pence would be as much as he could earn in a whole year—about £7. The country people were poor then, though not so poor as they are now, and the barley loaves and dried fish which the little lad of the company had with him were just samples of their ordinary food. I must tell you," continued Aunt Edith, "that, where we read that the Lord commanded His disciples to make them all sit down ‘by companies upon the green grass,’ the word translated ‘companies’ means rather ‘parties,’ having the idea of social groups gathered together, and the word translated ‘ranks’ does not mean rows, but rather beds of flowers or herbs.”
“It makes one fancy what a beautiful picture it would have made, if there had been any one there to paint it—the people all sitting round waiting, while the Lord Jesus looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves. I suppose ‘blessed’ means the same as ‘asked’ a blessing, as papa does?”
“It may just mean that, for St. John tells us that the Lord ‘gave thanks,’ Charley. We are not told what He said, but it was the custom for the father of a family to ask a blessing on the food, in such words as these, ‘May God, the ever blessed One, bless what He has given us.’"
“Still I should like to know what the Lord really said, and I often think I should like to have seen how it all happened—whether the pieces of bread grew larger in the hands of the disciples.”
“I don't think it is a good plan to try to imagine how the wonderful works done by the Lord Jesus came about, Charley," said his aunt. "Let us reverently study every detail which God has been pleased to give us through the pens of those who were eye-witnesses of them, but remember that our own imaginings and the thoughts of our hearts can only lead us astray when they try to find out more than God has told us in His word. It is enough for us to know that the loaves and fishes were ‘brought to Jesus,’ and that, receiving the food from His gracious hand, the disciples distributed it to that great multitude, and that everyone was satisfied; not one was left out or forgotten, but all had 'as much as they would.'”
“I daresay the disciples were surprised that they should be told to gather up the fragments," said May, "and it must have been tiresome work picking the crumbs up from the grass; but I suppose the Lord wished to teach them not to be wasteful. What sort of baskets did they use then, Aunt Edith?”
“Those mentioned in connection with this miracle were the small baskets of wicker-work in which the people used to carry their food. You may remember that, in the account of the feeding of the four thousand in Decapolis, we are told that they took up seven baskets of the broken pieces which were left. These baskets were much larger, and were made of twisted rope.”
“That must have been a very large basket in which St. Paul was let down, when he escaped from Damascus.”
“I was just going to tell you, Charley, that that was one of the rope baskets. But what were you asking, May?”
“I wanted to know, Auntie, whether there are ever storms now upon the Sea of Galilee as there were in those times. You know you said the lake was not very broad, and yet the disciples were ‘toiling in rowing,’ and could not get to the other side, until Jesus came into the ship and the wind ceased.”
“Oh, yes,” said Charley, "of course there must be storms now; for however much people may change, lakes and mountains do not alter.”
“Sudden storms are common to all inland seas, May," said Aunt Edith. "You know," she continued, "how calm and still the blue lake used to look when you were in Switzerland? Sometimes, however, by a sudden rush of wind sweeping through the mountain valleys, its placid surface is broken up into a thousand waves with white foamy crests just so it is with the Sea of Galilee. I read an account, not long ago, of a party of travelers having started in fair weather to sail across; but, before they reached the middle of the, lake, they had to take down their sails, for the waves were beating into their boas; and threatened to overwhelm them.”
“I cannot find Decapolis, where you said the four thousand were fed; which side of the lake was it?”
“It was the country to the east and south-east, Charley; I think you know enough about words to understand that the name means ‘ten cities.’ When the Romans conquered Syria they gave special rights to these cities, and the district took its name from them.”
“We read a good deal about fishing in the New Testament," said Charley, thoughtfully; "perhaps it was because several of the disciples were fishermen. I wonder what their boats were like, and whether fish are caught now just as they were so long ago; you always say that the ways of doing things have changed as little as possible, Aunt Edith.”
“We do not know much about the boats, though there seems no doubt that in the time of our Lord there were a great number, both for fishing and merchandise, plying up and down the lake. Now all around it is so silent and deserted that Dr. Robinson tells us that as he drew near he saw ‘a single white sail,’ and found it belonged to the one crazy boat which was used, not for fishing, but for conveying travelers from place to place.”
“Then is there no fishing now? Surely the fish are not gone: you said there were shoals of them.”
“It is not so much that the fish have deserted their old home as that the fishing is neglected, Charley; there are said to be fourteen different kinds of fish in the lake, though many of them are not good for food. The best is a sort of trout, which is caught in a curious way.”
“Oh, do tell us about it.”
“The fishermen do not use a rod, but merely tie some hooks, made to look as much like thorns as possible, at short intervals upon a piece of cord; they bait these hooks with shrimps, and then, standing upon the shore, throw the line as far as they can into the water, and seldom fail to catch a fish; but I should have told you that the line is weighted with bits of lead, so that it does not float upon the surface.”
“Peter was told to cast a hook into the sea, and the first fish which came up was the one which gave him the piece of money for the tribute. Perhaps he fished just in the same way, by throwing a cord from the shore.”
“I think it is very likely, Charley. Fish are often taken now by the easy means of throwing poisoned crumbs into the lake. The poor fish eat them greedily, soon turn over quite dead, and are washed ashore, and taken to market.”
“Oh, Aunt Edith, what a way of fishing!”
“You see, there is no deep-water fishing now, and the people do not care how they catch the fish so long as they get them.”
“I wonder what sort of a net that was which Simon and Andrew were casting into the sea when the Lord Jesus said, ‘Come ye after Me, and I will make you become fishers of men’?”
“It is believed to have been a round net, which was thrown from the shore, a ‘casting-net.’ The word used by St. Luke in the account of the miraculous draft of fishes is different, and means a bag, or basket-net, which might be let down into the deep water from a boat. Again, in the similitude in the thirteenth of St. Matthew, the net to which the kingdom of heaven is likened is a great drag-net, let down from a boat, and pulled in by fishermen standing upon shore, and landing the fish upon a shelving bank. This sort of net is used in England, and is sometimes half a mile in length.”
“I remember," said Charley, "that net ‘gathered of every kind,’ good fish and bad.”
“You see that a large hauling-net must bring in fish of all kinds," said his aunt. "These differences in words may seem small and unimportant, but words have a mighty power of their own, and remember, dear children, everything which may help us to understand the Bible better is worthy of our careful study.”