THE city of Samaria cannot boast a great antiquity, like the neighboring Shechem, or the rival capital Jerusalem. It was only after the break-up of the kingdom, and during the wild days which preceded the reign of Ahab, that the city came into existence. About the year B.C. 925 the father of Ahab (Omri) bought the hill upon which the city stands from Shemer, and built thereon a city, which he called after Shemer, “Shomeron.” This name, having traveled through Chaldee and Greek, has at last reached us in its Latin form “Samaria.” Derived from a root signifying “to watch,” the name means “a watch mountain,” or “watch tower,” and most aptly describes the place in question; but that it was given with reference to Shemer, and not on account of any natural peculiarity, plainly appears from the Scripture; and it is natural to conclude that the “Samaritans” take their name from the city and land of Samaria, though it has been asserted that they were called “Shomerim” (i.e. “Samaritans”) from being “watchers” or “keepers” of the land under the King of Assyria, or of the law of Moses, as against the Jews, who added to the Canon the later sacred books. The Samaritans admit only the Pentateuch.
What was written in our last paper as to the beauty of Shechem, applies, to a great extent, to Samaria. These cities are distant from each other only about six miles, in the same hill-encircled basin, and the district of Samaria partakes of the characteristics of the Vale of Shechem.! twill be remembered that Isaiah speaks of the “glorious beauty” of Ephraim. Its beauty is diminished now, though it has not entirely disappeared. “It would be difficult,” says Dr. Robinson, “to find in all Palestine, a situation of equal strength, fertility, and beauty combined. In all these particulars it has greatly the advantage over Jerusalem.” Its strength lay in this―that the hill sprang from the center of a deep, broad valley, with steep, though accessible sides. It therefore lent itself readily to fortification, and thus was at a great advantage in the sieges which it afterward sustained.
As already mentioned, the city was built by Omri. Here he was buried, and Ahab, his son, reigned in his stead. Under the reign of this evil king, and during that of Jeroboam II., the city flourished. We read of the ivory house which Ahab built, while Amos, when predicting the overthrow of the city, used language which could only apply to a state of splendor-winter and summer houses, and houses of ivory, and great houses. The denunciations of the prophets were severe, for along with magnificent buildings intended for his own use, Ahab had built a temple and altar to Baal; he made also “the Asherah,”―the image or symbol of the Phœnician goddess, Ashtoreth. Samaria is even called “The City of the house of Baal.”
Samaria became the capital of Israel, and its history is interwoven with that of the kingdom. It was its lot, as the chief city, to be often in a state of siege. Twice did Ben-hadad King of Syria, attempt to take it; the first time ended in the defeat of his army, notwithstanding that thirty and two kings were with him; the second occasion was that famous time when the Lord caused the besieging host to hear “a noise of chariots and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great army,” and the Syrians fled, the four leprous men being the evangelists of plenty to the famished people. A third attack was made about 170 years later by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, but not until three long years had passed did the city at last succumb, and then was it that the inhabitants were taken away, and Babylonians and Cuthims― (the ancestors of those known as “Samaritans”) ―were put in their place. The city revived, but again did the hand of war devastate the fair spot, for John Hyrcanus, the brother of Judas Maccabæus, displeased with injuries which had been inflicted upon a colony of Jews by the Samaritans, “besieged it,” says Josephus, “with a great deal of pains.” Even so, it was not captured for a year, but when it fell, “he demolished it utterly, and brought rivulets in it to drown it, for he dug such hollows as might let the waters run under it: nay, he took away the very marks that there had ever been such a city there.” This was in B.C. 109.
We must pass over unimportant points in its history, till we come to the days immediately preceding the birth of the Lord, when Herod the Great rebuilt the city, and gave it a new name, “Sebaste” (which is the same as Augusta), in honor of Augustus Cesar―a name which survives in the present “Sebastiyeh.” Herod’s alterations and improvements were most elaborate: round the city he built a wall twenty furlongs in length, and in the midst of the city a very large temple to Caesar. By this greatness he intended to preserve the name of his patron Augustus; to make the city more eminent than it had ever been before, but “principally,” says the Jewish historian, “he contrived that it might at once be for his own security and a monument to his magnificence.” It had now become “not inferior to the most famous cities.” Its splendid temple, the elegance of its buildings, and the strength of its citadel were all governed by the thought, “that he might leave monuments of the fineness of his taste and of his beneficence to future ages.” So again writes Josephus, and it is striking to turn from his elaborate descriptions of such wealth and splendor, and the vain desires of the ambitious Herod, to the accounts of all that survives of the once beautiful city. “Miserable,” “wretched,” “insignificant,” are the epithets bestowed by various travelers upon the village which still clings to the hill. Especially striking is it, if we bear in mind the oft-cited prophesy: “I will make Samaria as a heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof.” Of the city which was standing when these words were uttered, we may almost say that of course no sign survives; of all the magnificence of Herod several columns remain; these, by the traces of their beauty, help to heighten the sense of the surrounding desolation. What they originally formed is very uncertain; they run in a double row, as shown in our woodcut, forming an avenue 150 feet wide, each pillar distant from its neighbor about eight feet. Further research will perhaps discover their use, for it is only in comparatively recent years that “Sebaste” has been brought to light. Relics of the ancient city―such as coins, gems, bronzes, are frequently found in the rubbish, “and,” says Major Wilson, “there is perhaps no place where a richer harvest awaits the future explorer.”
Turning from Samaria to the Samaritans―a handful of whom still survive at Nablus—we repeat that beyond question they took their name from Samaria. Josephus says expressly that they were “called Samaritans, by taking the name of the country to which they were removed.” Idolaters in heart and practice, they professed Judaism on account of the lions sent by the Lord among them, winning the scornful name bestowed upon them by the Jews― “Lion-converts.” From the first, bitter animosity existed between Samaritans and Jews, a national feud at first, afterward religious, when, assisted by apostate Jews, the Samaritans built a temple on Mount Gerizim, and brought their ritual into outward conformity to the Mosaic laws. When the Jews were in adversity, the Samaritans denied that they were of kin to them, “and then,” dryly says Josephus, “they confess the truth,” but when good fortune befell the true descendants of Israel, they pretended to derive their genealogy from Joseph. Very shameful was their behavior in the days of the persecutor Antiochus; to him they sent a letter, thus: ― “To King Antiochus, the God (!) Epiphanes, a memorial from the Sidonians who live at Shechem.” After denying all kinship to the Jews, and affirming that they were “aliens from their nation and from their customs,” they beg that their temple, “which at present hath no name at all, be named the Temple of Jupiter Hellenius”!
Can we altogether wonder at the contempt in which the Jews held the name of Samaritan? Nor has the feud yet ceased. When. Dr. Wilson visited Nablus and took up his quarters with the Samaritans, he was asked by the Jewish Rabbi why he made his abode with “the despicable Samaritans.” A satisfactory answer was given, and three of the Jews actually accepted an invitation to visit Dr. Wilson at his temporary home. When the Samaritan priest saw them coming, he called out, “Who told these brutes to come hither?”
At Nablus, then, may still be found the descendants of the ancient Cuthims, in number about two hundred, arrogating to themselves the name of “Benê Israel―the Children of Israel,” and asserting that their priests are descended from Levi, and the rest of the people from the two sons of Joseph. They have a synagogue, and among their treasures are certain extremely ancient copies of the Pentateuch―not a translation, but the Hebrew words are written out in Samaritan characters. One very famous copy there is, exhibited once a year to their own people, but very jealously guarded from, and only on rare occasions shown to, non-Samaritans. This, they assert, was written by Abishua, the great-grandson of Aaron; it is kept in a silver case, having a red satin cover, lettered with Samaritan inscriptions, and embroidered in gold. Our small woodcut shows this copy. Their Pentateuch differs in some thousands of places from the Hebrew text, but none of the variations are so shameless as the substitution of “Gerizim” for “Ebal,” in Deut. 27:4. — a substitution made to support their claims for “this mountain,” as the Samaritan woman called it when speaking to the Lord Jesus.
There is something very melancholy in the rigid adherence to the Mosaic law which these people exhibit, for they have no right to ordinances which were given to Israel. They are Gentiles by descent, to whom no covenant was given, and they have no discernment of the typical and spiritual import of the sacrifices and ordinances which they observe. We know that in our Lord’s days they expected a Messiah; now, they say, “The Messiah is not one of our terms, but we do not particularly object to its use. We still expect a great instructor and guide, whom we call Hathab, to appear in the world.” This is in expected fulfillment of Deut. 18:15. When questioned about the sacrifices, they could only return the heathenish answer, “God likes blood: because in blood there is life “They observe circumcision, and the Mosaic Feasts―New Year, Atonement, Pentecost, Passover, Tabernacles, &c. — all the rest they refuse. At the Passover of this present year the ceremony was duly observed on Mount Gerizim, seven lambs being slaughtered at sunset the blood was sprinkled on each tent, and the flesh, after being roasted in a furnace, was at midnight eaten in haste, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, the Samaritans being girded and with staff in hand, as was the case with Israel at the exodus.
So these poor people go on, with high pretensions, yet wretchedly ignorant, and, as of old, worshipping “they know not what.” But, after all, we fear that their case is not greatly removed from that of many in our own land. There may be much outward attendance on Christian ordinances and forms of worship, yet how many, alas, stop at those external acts! “God is a Spirit,” said the Lord Jesus of old to a Samaritans (and His words are as true today as then), “and they that worship Him must worship Him in sprit and in truth.” (John 4:24.) Jr.