many other medicinable drugs. The rivers of this tribe are the waters of Nimrah and Dibon, and the river Jaboc; others do also fancy another river, which, rising out of the rocks of Arnon, falleth into Jordan.

SECT. VI.

Of the Ammonites, part of whose territories the Gadites won from Og the king of Basan.

THIS tribe of Gad possessed half the country of the Ammonites, who together with the Moabites held that part. of Arabia Petræa called Nabathea, as well within as without the mountains of Gilead; though at this time, when the Gadites won it, it was in the possession of Sehon and Og, Amorites and therefore Moses did not expel the Ammonites, but the Amorites, who had thrust the issues of Lot over the mountains Trachones, or Gilead, as before. After the death of Othoniel, the first judge of Israel, the Ammonites joined with the Moabites against the Hebrews, and so continued long. Jephtha, judge of Israel, had a great conquest over one of the kings of Ammon, but his name is omitted. In the time of Samuel they were at peace with them again.

Afterward we find that cruel king of the Ammonites, called Nahas; who besieging y Jabes Gilead, gave them no other conditions but the pulling out of their right eyes. The reason why he tendered so hard a composition was, (besides this desire to bring shame upon Israel,) because those Gileadites using to carry a target on their left arms, which could not but shadow their left eyes, should by losing their right be utterly disabled to defend themselves; but Saul came to their rescue, and delivered them from that danger. This Nahas, as it may seem, became the confederate of David, having friended him in Saul's time, though z Josephus thinks that this Nahas was slain in the battle, when Saul raised the siege of Jabes, who affirmeth that there were three kings of the Moabites of that name.

Hanon succeeded Nahas; to whom when David sent to congratulate his establishment, and to confirm the former friendship which he had with his father, he most contemptuously and proudly cut off the ambassadors' garments to the knees, and shaved the half of their beards. But afterwards, notwithstanding the aids received from the Aramites subject to Adadezer, and from the reguli of Rehob and Maacah, and from b Istob, yet all those Arabians, together with the Ammonites, were overturned; their chief city of Rabba, after Philadelphia, was taken, the crown, which weighed a talent of gold, was set on David's head; all such as were prisoners David executed with strange severity; for with saws and harrows he tare them in pieces, and cast the rest into limekilns.

Jehoshaphat governing Juda, they assisted the Moabites their neighbours against him, and perished together. Osias made them tributaries, and they were again by Jotham enforced to continue that tribute, and to increase it, to wit, one hundred talents of silver, ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand of barley; which the Ammonites continued two years.

The fifth king of the Ammonites, of whose name we read, was Baalis, the confederate of Zedekiah; after whose taking by Nabuchodonosor, Baalis sent Ismael, of the blood of the kings of Juda, to slay Gedaliah, who served Nabuchodonosor.

SECT. VII.

Of the other half of Manasseh,

THE rest of the land of Gilead, and of the kingdom of Og in Basan, with the land of Hus and Argob, or Trachonitis, (wherein also were part of the small territories of Ba

b Istob, that is, the men of Thob : Thob is a small territory under Arnon hills. Rehob is another between Hazor and Sidon, in the north bound of Canaan, Num. xiii. 22. of which see in the tribe of Asher, Jer. xl. and xli. 2 Chron. xx. xxxvi. xxvi. xxvii.

Another territory adjoining to Manasseh, whose limits were confounded with some of these, was that Thishbitis, the country of Elias, as it is 1 Kings xvi. 1. and of Tobias, Tob. i. 2. it lay on the east to the tribe of Nephthali, on the right band of it, as in Tob. i. 2. and was possessed

tanea, Gaulonitis, Gessuri, Machati, and Auranitis,) was given to the half tribe of Manasseh over Jordan, of which those three latter provinces defended themselves against them for many ages. But Batanea Ptolomy setteth further off, and to the north-east, as a skirt of Arabia the Desert: and all these other provinces before named with Peraa and Ituræa, he nameth but as part of Coelesyria, as far south as Rabba or Philadelphia; likewise all the rest which belonged to Gad and Reuben, saving the land near the Dead sea, he makes a part of Arabia Petræa; for many of these small kingdoms take not much more ground than the county of Kent.

Basan, or, after the Septuagint, Basanitis, stretcheth itself from the river of Jaboc to the d Machati and Gessuri; and from the mountains to Jordan, a region exceeding fertile; by reason whereof it abounded in all sorts of cattle. It had also the goodliest woods of all that part of the world; especially of oaks, which bear mast, (of which the prophet Zacharias, Howl, O ye oaks of Bashan,) and by reason hereof they bred so many swine, as e 2000 in one herd were carried headlong into the sea by the unclean spirits which Christ had cast out of one of the Gaderens. It had in it threescore cities, walled and defenced; all which, after Og and his sons were slain, Jair, descended of Manasseh, conquered, and called the country after his own name, Avoth Jair, or the cities of Jair.

The principal cities of this half tribe (for I will omit the rest) are these; Pella, sometimes fButis, otherwise Berenice: by Seleucus, king of Syria, it is said to have been called Pella, after the name of that Pella in Macedon, in which

by colonies of the Israelites in the time of Saul, after his victory over the Amalekites and Ismaelites in those parts, as it is gathered out of 1 Chron. V. 10. whence it appears that it was part of Ituræa, of which, chap. 7. sect. 4. §. 5 and 6.

So they call them of Mahacath, of which Malacath somewhat hath

been spoken towards the end of the fifth paragraph of this chapter. See I Mac. v. 36. and Deut. iii. 14. and Josh. xii. 5.

e. Mark v. 13.

it was

f Anciently, as it seems, called Tophel. See above in the bounds of the plains of Moab, in this chapter, sect. 4. §. 2.

both Philip the father and his son Alexander the Great were born. It was taken, and in part demolished, by Alexander Jannæus, king of the Jews, because it refused to obey the Jews' laws; but it was repaired by Pompey, and annexed to the government of Syria. It is now but a village, saith Niger. Carnaim by the river of Jaboc, taken by 8 Judas Maccabæus, where he set on fire the h temple of their idols, together with all those that fled thereinto for sanctuary; and near it they place the castle of Carnion, of which 2 Mac. xii. 22. Then the strong city of i Ephron near Jordan, which refusing to yield passage to Judas Maccabæus, was forced by him by assault, and taken and burnt with great slaughter.

Jabes Gilead, or Jabesus, was another of the cities of this half tribe, which being besieged by 'Nahas, king of the Ammonites, was delivered by Saul, as is melsewhere mentioned. In memory whereof the citizens n recovered, embalmed, and buried the bodies of Saul and his sons, which hung despitefully over the walls of Bethsan, or Scythopolis. • Gaddara, or Gadara, is next to be named, seated by Pliny on a hill near the river Hieromiace, which river Ortelius seems to think to be Jaboc. At the foot of the hill there spring forth also hot baths, as at Machærus. Alexander Jannæus, after ten months siege, won it, and subverted it. Pompey restored it; and Gabinius Pmade it one of the five courts of justice in Palestine. Jerusalem being the first, Gadara the second, Emath or Amathus the third, Jericho and Sephora in Galilee the fourth and fifth. The citizens impatiently bearing the tyranny of Herod, surnamed Ascalonita, accused him to Julius Cæsar of many crimes; 'but perceiving that they could not prevail, and that Herod was highly favoured of Cæsar, fearing the terrible 9 revenge of Herod,

they slew themselves; some by strangling, others by leaping over high towers, others by drowning themselves.

To the east of Gadara they place Sebei, 'in which Josephus, Ant. 5. 13. saith Jephtha, was buried; whence others, reading with the Vulgar, Jud. xii. 7. Sepultus est in civitate sua Gilehad, (for, in una civitatum Gilehad,) imagine Gilehad to be the name of a city, and to be the same with Sebei. In like manner following the Vulgar, 1 Mac. v. 26. where it readeth Casphor for Chesbon; the same Adrichomius imagineth it to be ampla et firma Gilehaditarum civitas: so of one city Hesbon, or Chesbon, which they call Essebon, the chief city of Sehon in the tribe of Reuben, he imagineth two more: this Casphor in Manasses, and a city in Gad which he calleth Casbon, of which we have admonished the reader heretofore. Of Gamala, (so called because the hill on which it stood was in fashion like the back of a camel,) which Josephus placeth not far from Gadara, in the lower Gaulanitis, over-against Tarichea, which is on the west side of the sea or lake of Tiberias. See this Josephus in his fourth book of the Jewish War, c. 1. 3. where he describes the place by nature to be almost invincible; and in the story of the siege, shews how Vespasian, with much danger of his own person, entering it, was at first repulsed, with other very memorable accidents; and how at length, after the coming of Titus, when it was taken, many leaping down the rocks, with their wives and children, to the number of five thousand, thus perished; besides four thousand slain by the Romans; so that none escaped, save only two women that hid themselves.

About four miles west from Gadara, and as much east from Tiberias, (which is on the other side of the lake,) Josephus placeth Hippus, or Hippene, whence s Ptolomy gives the name to the hills that compass the plains in which it standeth; so that it may seem to have been of no small note. It is seated far from the hill country; on the east of the lake, as also Pliny noteth, lib. 5. cap. 15. it was restored by

Of Mitspa in Gilead, the city of Jephtha, see in the tribe of Gad,

s In Vita sua.