46 CANAAN, The land of, Sylvester Hassell The ancient Canaan was about 170 miles in length, and 40 in average breadth, covering some 7,000 square miles, about the size of Wales. The length of the country under Solomon’s dominion was about 200 miles, with a breadth of 160 miles, and an area of some 12,000 square miles.
Canaan, or Palestine, was designed and arranged by God when he laid the foundations of the earth and divided to the nations their inheritance, to be a natural fortress for the preservation of religious truth and purity; a home in which a covenant people might be trained and educated in the household of God and directly under his eye, to be zealous of good works themselves, and to be a priesthood to mankind; to carry out in their history God’s promise to the founder of their race, that in him should all the families of the earth be blessed.
And therefore God surrounded it with natural fortifications, which kept it separate and secluded—even though placed in the very midst of the most concentrated populations of the world, in the very focus toward which their intercourse with one another radiated—until the objects of their hermit-training and discipline of its inhabitants were accomplished. God hedged round the vineyard in which he planted his own noble vine with tower and trench, with sea and desert, against the boar of the wood and the beast of the field.
From the foul Baal and Astarte worship of Syria in the north, it was defended by the lofty mountains of Lebanon; from the degrading brute and plant idolatry of Egypt it was guarded, in the south, by a long stretch of pathless wilderness; from the Assyrian deification of lawless force, and the monstrous incarnations of the east, the deep depression of the Jordan valley, the swift, deep current of the river, and the intricate fastnesses of the arid hills and valleys beyond, formed a sufficient protection; while between the people and the baneful effects of the beautiful and captivating human apotheoses of Greece and Rome, the Great Sea rolled its wide waste of waters.
This remarkable isolation of the country prevented the inhabitants from having any commercial intercourse with the outlying nations, Num. 23:9. With the single and very doubtful exception of Joppa, there was no suitable harbor in which ships could be sheltered; all the havens along the western coast being unsafe. Not a single navigable river flowed from the interior to the sea; the principal stream, the Jordan, flowing parallel with the coast, and being very rapid, crooked and broken, and so deep below the surface of the adjacent country as to be invisible and difficult to approach, and finally losing itself in an inland gulf which is as far below the level of the ocean as the mountains around it are above.
Not a single one of the many cities that at different times held the rank of capital was situated on the seashore, Jerusalem being build in the wildest and most inaccessible part of the interior. All these circumstances favored the design of God, and acted in harmony with the spirit of the Jewish law, which discountenanced commerce as much as it encouraged agriculture. The Jews could not help being a nation of farmers.
As a new seed of Adam, subjected to a new trial of obedience, they were placed in this new garden of Eden, to dress and keep it, in order that through their tilling of the ground the wilderness and the solitary place might be made glad, and the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose.
Very rich and varied were the natural resources of Canaan. No other country in the world presented, within a limited area, such diversities of soil and climate. On the one side it rose ten thousand feet above the level of the sea; on the other it sank one thousand three hundred feet below it; and between these two extremes there was the utmost variety of scenery, temperature and productions. All the seasons had their perpetual abode in this favored country. Perpetual spring smiled on the green slopes of Galilee; summer that knew no blight glowed on the tree-covered hills of Carmel; autumn lingered around the corn fields of Bethlehem and the purple vineyards of Hebron; while grim winter sat forever on his icy throne on the brow of Lebanon, and sent his cooling breath over, but dared not lift, his destroying arm upon the land.
Going from the north to the south was like passing through the circle of the year and the zones of the earth. In the deep trench of the Jordan the mild dews and soft air of the temperate zone; and far up the sides of Lebanon the icy rigor of the Arctic regions. Almost every species of the vegetable kingdom— forest-tree, fruit and flower, field and garden product—is found in Palestine.
Containing, in ancient times, from three to six million inhabitants, it was the most fertile and highly cultivated country in the world, and amply sufficed to sustain its population without any extraneous support, without any need of commerce or merchandise.
The whole landed property of the country was divided inalienably among the inhabitants in such a way as that the possession of each family was capable of yielding, in years of ordinary productiveness, not merely a comfortable, but even a luxurious maintenance. Each Israelite sat under his own vine and fig tree, without fear or famine.
The whole land was self-contained and independent, and thus its isolation from surrounding nations was still further secured. By the necessity of a careful cultivation of every inch of soil, the Jews became distinguished above other nations for habits of industry, intelligence and economy; while their worldwide variety of soil and climate fitted them for their universal destiny .(H. Macmillan’s SABBATH OF THE FIELDS. From Hassell’s History)