02.13. Side by side

Side by side The main physical features of the land of Israel run in roughly north-south parallel strips between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Bordering the Mediterranean is a long narrow coastal plain that rises into an area of low foothills. These foothills then rise into the broad central mountains, which is where most of Israel’s population lived in biblical times. The other side of these mountains falls away into a deep valley called the Arabah, through which the Jordan River flows. East of Jordan the land rises sharply to open on to an uneven tableland. To the south, the central mountain range becomes gradually flatter till it becomes the broad dry region known as the Negeb. This entire southern part of ancient Canaan, where Abraham once roamed with his flocks and where David once fled from Saul, became the tribal area of Judah, later the southern part of the divided kingdom, and in New Testament times the Roman province of Judea. In the south of Judea was Idumea, an area peopled by ancient Edomites who inter-married with Arabs and Jews. The Herods were Idumeans. To the north the broad central mountains become higher, more fertile and more thickly populated till they open on to the region known as Galilee. Between Galilee in the north and Judah in the south is the central region known as Samaria. In Old Testament times the city of Samaria was capital of the northern kingdom.¹ In New Testament times the province of Samaria was, with Judea, administered by Rome from Caesarea.²

Samaria today is a ruin, and Shechem has been replaced by the bustling town of Nablus. In the time of Jesus the local people were Samaritans, but they and the Jews had difficulty getting on with each other.³ Today the local people are Palestinians, and they and the Jews still have difficulty getting on with each other. Living with ethnic and religious difference requires tolerance, no matter where people live.

1. 1 Kings 16:23-24; 1 Kings 16:29; 1 Kings 20:1; 1 Kings 20:43 2. Acts 12:19; Acts 23:33; Acts 25:1 3. Luke 9:51-55; John 4:4-9

Ruins of biblical Samaria