Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/527



THE GLORIOUS CONSUMMATION 511

defined, namely, "from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem" Geba, probably the same as Gibeah of Saul, was in the tribe of Benjamin, 1 and is mentioned in 2 Kings xxiii. 8 as one of the northern border towns of the land of Judah. Rimmon was on the southern border of Palestine, and is identified by some scholars with the modern Umm-er- Rummamin, north of Beersheba. The words " south of Jerusalem " are added, to distinguish this latter place from the town Rimmon in Galilee 2 (identified with Rummaneh), and from the rock Rimmon in the hill range of Benjamin. 3

All this district from Geba to Rimmon is to be changed and become " as the Arabah " (nznyii). This word, trans lated " plain " in the A.V., is the proper name of the Jordan valley " that remarkable depression which runs from the slopes of Hermon to the Red Sea, known as the deepest depression in the surface of the globe " ; the sea of Galilee situated within it being 652 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, while the Dead Sea, which is also included in its course, is 1316 feet below that level, or the level of the Red Sea. Parts of this valley were distinguished for their luxurious vegetation, but the reference here is not to its fertility nor to its deep depression, which probably will itself undergo modification in that day of great physical as well as moral upheavals, but to the fact of its being a plain.

The whole hill-country specified shall be levelled or become a plain, " and she " (i.e., Jerusalem) " shall be lifted up" (or "exalted"} "and shall dwell" (or "become settled"} "in lier place" literally, "upon that which was under her," upon her own tel, or mound, as Jeremiah expresses it. 4

In this brief statement about the towering position of Jerusalem in that day the prophet Zechariah gives us also, as is his wont, a terse summary of the longer predictions of the former prophets ; for already Isaiah and Micah, as well as Ezekiel, announced that " it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of Jehovah s house shall be

Josh, xviii. 24. 2 Josh. xix. 13.

a Judg. xx. 45-47.

4 *& ^V, Jer. xxx. 18. Translated in the A.V., " Upon its own heap."