ROUTE 8. EXCURSION TO BETHANY.

Every one who can by any possibility walk 3 m. should make this excursion on foot. Half the pleasure is lost if it be hurried over. Every step is “holy ground,” trodden by prophets and apostles, and ONE greater than them all. We thus often feel constrained to sit down, and calmly contemplate scenes unsurpassed on earth for sacred interest.

Three paths lead from the city to Bethany. The first winds up the slight depression in the western side of Olivet, touches the northern end of the village on the summit, and then winds down the eastern declivity. The second branches off from the former above Gethsemane, skirts the southern side of the village, and joins the former again above Bethany. The third strikes to the right below Gethsemane, passes round the southern shoulder of the hill, and is the main road to Jericho. We shall go by the first, and return by the third; for thus we get the best views of the scenery, and the most striking illustrations of Scripture narratives—we go out with David in his flight from Absalom, and return with the Saviour in his triumphal entry.

Passing out of St. Stephen’s Gate, we descend the winding path to the bottom of the Kidron, cross the bridge, and leaving the Tomb of the Virgin on the 1., and Gethsemane on the rt., strike up the ancient road to the top of Olivet. The guide may probably point out some flat rocks beside “the Garden,” now honoured and kissed by numerous pilgrims, because tradition tells them that here the three disciples slept while their Master prayed. Farther up we observe steps and cuttings in the limestone rock, proving the antiquity of the path. Here we are unquestionably in the footsteps of David, who, when he fled from Absalom, “ went over the brook Kîdron, toward the way of the wilderness. .. . And went up by the ascent of Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered; and he went barefoot ; and all the people that was with him covered every man his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up. (2 Sam. xv. 23, 30.) On reaching the summit, beside the modern village, we must be near, perhaps upon, the very spot where the king had been wont to “ worship God,” and where he now met Hushai the Archite. (Id. xv. 32.) As we sit here on some projecting rock, with the city before us, and the Bible in our hands, we can see with the mind's eye the weeping, monarch, and his weeping train, meeting the old counsellor, “ “with his coat rent, and earth upon his head, and persuading him to go back to the city to defeat the counsel of Ahithophel.” (Id. xv. 34.) Passing the summit, the wide panorama eastward suddenly opens up before us: first the eye catches the long, regular, massive wall of the Moab mountains; then the deep, mysterious valley of the Jordan, with patches of the Dead Sea, like molten lead, gleaming in its bottom ; and lastly the naked white hills that shelve downward from our feet till they drop suddenly into the valley far below. (For the view from the top of Olivet see Sect. III. § 32.) Here again we can almost mark the precise place—a few yards below the modern wely—where David, when “a little past the top of the hill,” met Ziba, the wily servant of Mephibosheth, “with a couple of asses saddled, and upon them two hundred loaves of bread, and an hundred bunches of raisins, and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine.” (Id.xvi. 1.) Going farther down the rugged slope among terraced fields, we cannot be far from Bahurim, from whence Shimei, a relative of Saul, “came forth, and cursed still as lie came ;” and threw stones and dust at the fallen monarch. (Id. xvi. 5-8.) Here the “way of the wilderness”’ continues straight down the mountain, but we turn to the rt. through terraced fields and  fig-orchards, and soon join the more frequented path which comes down from the S. side of the village. Passing now a low rocky ridge which screens Bethany from the top of Olivet, we have the little lonely mountain hamlet in a nook at our feet; and we are suddenly reminded of a greater than King David, and of a greater event than any in the history of that monarch — the Saviour led out His disciples “as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed tiem. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into Heaven.” (Luke xxiv. 50, 51.) Here then, among the retired uplands immediately overhanging the village, far removed from the stir of the ‘city, took place the last interview between Christ and His disciples. Here His feet last touched the earth, ere the cloud received Him out of their sight. Here too His disciples heard those remarkable and cheering words of the angels: “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” (Acts i. 11.)

Bethany, now called el-’Aziriyeh ; from el-’Azir, the Arabic form of Lazarus, is a poor village of some 20 houses, situated in a shallow wady on the eastern slope of Olivet, and surrounded by broken rocky ground, once carefully terraced, and still containing some few orchards of fig-trees. Its distance from Jerusalem is about 14 m., corresponding pretty exactly to the 15 furlongs of the Evangelist John. (xi. 18.) The view from it is dreary and desolate, commanding the region through which the road to Jericho runs. The houses are of stone, massive and rude; evidently constructed of old materials, among which we see the Jewish bevel. Over them on the S., on the top of a scarped rock, rises a heavy fragment of ancient masonry, built of bevelled stones; but its original object cannot be determined—it looks more like a fort than a house.

This then is the little hamlet which derives an undying interest from having been made the home of our Saviour during his visits to Jerusalem, and from having been the scene of some of the most affecting incidents of His life. What Capernaum was in Galilee, Bethany was in Judea. Here He was wont to retire in the quiet evening after each day of thankless but unceasing toil in the city. (Matt. xxi.17.) Here dwelt the sisters Mary and Martha, with Lazarus their brother. On the farther side of that deep valley, away among those distant blue mountains, Christ was abiding when the sisters sent to inform Him that Lazarus was sick. Down that long dreary descent they often looked with anxious gaze in expectation of His coming On that old road, without the village, Martha met Him, with ‘the despairing, almost reproachful ' words, “ Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.’”” Here He raised Lazarus from his tomb, and presented him alive to his weeping sisters. (John xi. 1-46.) Here too was the house of Simon the leper, in which the grateful Mary anointed Jesus with precious ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair. (Matt. xxvi.6-9.) The precise sites of these events are, of course, pointed out—'the house of Simon, that of Mary and Martha, and the tomb of Lazarus. The latter is a deep vault, partly excavated in the rock, and partly lined with masonry. The entrance is low, Is and opens on a long, winding, half- ruinous staircase, leading down to a, small chamber; and from this a few steps more lead down to another smaller vault, in which the body of Lazarus is supposed to have lain. The situation of the tomb, in the centre of the village, scarcely agrees with the Gospel narrative, and the masonry of the interior has no appearance of antiquity. But the real tomb could not have been far distant, and in such a place as this few will think of traditional sites when the unvarying features of nature —the rocks, the glens, and the “everlasting hills” -- are before them. Some may inquire for the site of Bethphage ; but of it no trace has as yet been certainly discovered. It appears to me, from the way in which the two names are used in the Gospels, that they were probably applied to different quarters of the same village—the one called Bethphage, “House of figs,” from the fig-orchards adjoining it; the other Bethany, “House of dates,” from its palm-trees. (Comp. Mark xi. 1; Luke xix. 29.)

From Bethany the Saviour set out on the morning of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem; and we are now prepared to leave this little village, and trace His footsteps. There can be no question as to the route—on such an occasion none other would be taken but the main road round the southern shoulder of Olivet. Mr. Stanley’s description of this wondrous event is so graphic that I here transcribe it :— “Two vast streams of people met that day. The one poured out from the city (John xii. 12); and as they came through the gardens whose clusters of palm-trees rose on the south-eastern corner of Olivet, they cut down the long branches, as was their wont at the Feast of Tabernacles, and moved upwards towards Bethany, with loud shouts of welcome. From Bethany streamed forth the crowds who had assembled there on the previous night, and who came testifying to the great event at the sepulchre of Lazarus. In going toward Jerusalem the road soon loses sight of Bethany. It is now a rough, but still broad and well- defined mountain track, winding over loose rock and stones, and here and there deeply excavated; a steep declivity below on the 1; the sloping shoulder of Olivet above it on the rt.; fig-trees below and above, growing out of the rocky soil. Along road the multitudes threw down the branches which they cut as they went along, or spread out a rude matting formed of the palm-branches they had already cut as they came out. The larger portion—those perhaps who escorted him from Bethamy—unawrapped their loose cloaks from their shoulders, and stretched them along the rough path, to form a momentary carpet as He approached (Matt. xxi. 8). The two streams met. Half of the vast mass, turning round, preceded; the other half followed (Mark xi. 9). Gradually the long procession swept round the little valley that furrows the hill, and over the ridge on its western side, where first begins the descent of the Mount of Olives towards Jerusalem. At this point the first view is caught of the south-eastern (western) corner of the city. The temple and the more northern portions are hid by the slope of Olivet on the rt.; what is seen is only Mount Zion, now for the most part a rough field, crowned with the mosk of David and the angle of the western walls, but then covered with houses to its base, surmounted by the Castle of Herod, on the supposed site of the palace of David, from which that portion of Jerusalem, emphatically the ‘City of David,’ derived its name. It was at this precise point, ‘as he drew near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives "—(may it not have been from the sight thus opening upon them?) — that the shout of triumph burst forth from the multitude, ‘ Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord’ (Matt. xxi. 9). There was a pause as the shout rang through the long defile; and, as the Pharisees, who stood by in the crowd complained, He pointed to the stones which, strewn beneath their feet, would immediately cry out, if ‘ these were to hold their peace.’

“Again the procession advanced. The road descends a slight declivity, and the glimpse of the city is again withdrawn behind the intervening ridge of Olivet. A few moments, and the path mounts again; it climbs a rugged ascent, it reaches a ledge of smooth rock, and in an instant the whole city bursts into view. As now the dome of the mosk el-Aksa rises like a ghost from the earth before the traveller stands on the ledge, so then must have risen the Temple-tower; as now the vast enclosure of the Mussulman sanctuary, so then must have spread the Temple courts; as now the gray town on its broken hills, so then the magnificent city, with its background —long since vanished away—of gardens and suburbs on the western plateau behind. Immediately below was the valley of the Kidron, here seen in its greatest depths as it joins the valley of Hinnom, and thus giving full effect to the great peculiarity of Jerusalem, seen only on its eastern side—its situation as of a city rising out of a deep abyss. It is hardly possible to doubt that this rise and turn of the road—this rocky ledge—was the exact point where the multitude paused again, and ‘ He, when He beheld the city, wept over it.’ ”

We now descend the hill-side diagonally by the steep shelving path, having on the l. a vast multitude of Jewish tombs paving the declivity ; and away beyond them, down in the bottom of the valley, the tapering point of Absalom’s pillar; and over against us the summit of Moriah crowned by the long massive wall of the Hâram. Near the foot of the descent we skirt the wall of Gethsemane, then cross the Kidron, and ascend the steep path to St. Stephen’s Gate.

There is just one other point in the account of our Lord’s triumphal entry which requires illustration. Before He had started, or when He was on the point of starting from Bethany, He said to two of His disciples, “ Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her ; loose them and bring them unto me. And if any man say aught unto you, ye shall say the Lord hath need of them.” (Matt. Xxi. 2, 3.) Where was this village? Some would identify it with Abu Dis, a poor hamlet on a rocky height about 1 m. to the S. of Bethany. But there is another old site nearly in the line of the Saviour’s route, which I think has a better claim than Abu Dis. About 4 m. from Bethany, on the road to Jerusalem, we come to the brow of a deep glen, which runs down from the very summit of Olivet into the Kidron; from this point we obtain our first glance at the top of Zion. The road here turns to the rt., descends diagonally to the bottom of the glen, and then, turning to the l., ascends again in the same way till it surmounts the ridge on the western side. Upon the projecting point of this ridge, some 200 yds. below the road, are scarped rocks, cisterns, and old stones, marking the site of an ancient village. The situation answers well to the description given to the disciples, “the village over against you ;” and being close to the road, the inhabitants would already have seen the multitudes flocking out from the city to meet Jesus, and the owner of the ass and colt would understand at once the disciples’ words, “ The Lord hath need of them.” (Matt. Xxi. 3.)