Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/306

 and is equivalent to the King's Garden. M. Ganneau might claim in his favour the statement of Josephus that Adonijah's feast, "by En Rogel," took place near the fountain that was in the king's paradise (or park). But the paradise or park was something different from the garden, and Josephus does not use the word paradise to describe the king's gardens in which Uzziah was buried, but the word kepois. It is worth notice also that if the Virgin's Fountain was in the king's park, it was almost certainly outside the city. Again, the fact that the royal park included within it the spring of water makes it probable that the shaft in connection with it was on the royal property also, for the kings would hardly allow the free use of a spring which they deemed their own. And then, if the shaft was on the royal grounds (although that part was still traditionally called the Fuller's Field) it would be natural that Isaiah should find king Ahaz walking there.

Amos prophesied in the days of Uzziah, "two years before the earthquake" (Amos i. 1). This earthquake, although not noticed in the history, was of a terrible character, and the people fled before it (Zech. xiv. 5). As Josephus tells the story, it was just as Uzziah was entering the Temple that the building suddenly started asunder; the light flashed through, and at the same moment the leprosy rushed into the king's face. The hills around felt the shock, and a memorial of the crash was long preserved in a large fragment, or landslip, which, rolling down from the western hill, was brought to rest at the base of the eastern hill, and there obstructed not only the roads but the paradises of the kings. Josephus says that this occurred at the place called Eroge, and Dean Stanley is confident that he means En Rogel; but here again it is