The country of Jericho, and the situation of the city.

"And that plain burns in the summer, and, by too much heat, renders the air unhealthful: for it is all without water, except Jordan; the palms that grow in whose banks are more flourishing and more fruitful than those that grow more remote."

"Near Jericho is a very plentiful spring, and very rich for watering and moistening the ground; it riseth near the old city, and Jesus the son of Nave took it. Of which spring there is a report, that, in former times, it did not only make the fruits of the earth and of the trees to decay, but also the offspring of women; and was universally unwholesome and harmful to all: but it was changed into a better condition by Elizeus, &c. (see 2 Kings 2:21). So that those waters, which before were the cause of barrenness and famine, did thenceforth produce fruitfulness and abundance: and they have so great a virtue in their watering, that whatsoever place they touch, they bring on to a very speedy ripeness."

"And they overflow the plain seventy furlongs in length, and twenty in breadth: and there they nourish very fair and thick gardens of palm-trees of divers kinds, &c. That place also feeds bees, and produceth opobalsamum, and cyprinum, and myrobalanum: so that one might not call it amiss, 'a divine country,'" &c.

Strabo speaks like things, "Jericho is a plain surrounded with mountains, which in some places bend to it after the manner of a theatre. A grove of palm-trees is there, with which are mixed also other garden plants, a fruitful place, abounding with palm-trees for the space of a hundred furlongs, all well watered, and full of habitations. The royal court and paradise of balsam is there," &c.

And Pliny; "Jericho, planted with groves of palms, and well watered with springs," &c.

Hence the city is called, the "city of palm-trees," Deuteronomy 34:3, and Judges 1:16: where for that, which, in the Hebrew, is From the city of palm-trees, the Targum hath From the city Jericho: which nevertheless Kimchi approves not of, reckoning the city of palm-trees to be near Hebron: whom see. See also the Targum upon Judges 3:13, and Kimchi there; and the Targum upon Judges 4:5.

When you take a view of that famous fountain, as it is described by Josephus, thence you understand what waters of Jericho the Holy Ghost points out in Joshua 16:1.--And when you think of that most pleasant country watered from thence, let that Rabbinical story come into your mind, of The gift of Jericho, of five hundred cubits square, granted to the sons of Hobab, Moses' father-in-law: of which see Baal Turim, upon Numbers 10:29, and the Rabbins upon Judges 1.