The Project Gutenberg EBook of Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations
by Archibald Sayce

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Title: Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations

Author: Archibald Sayce

Release Date: July 21, 2004 [EBook #12976]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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EARLY ISRAEL
AND THE
SURROUNDING NATIONS

BY THE
REV. A.H. SAYCE
PROFESSOR OF ASSYRIOLOGY AT OXFORD

AUTHOR OF
"THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS," &c

London
SERVICE & PATON
5 HENRIETTA STREET
COVENT GARDEN
1899

INTRODUCTION

One of the first facts which strike the traveller in Palestine is the
smallness of a country which has nevertheless occupied so large a space
in the history of civilised mankind. It is scarcely larger than an
English county, and a considerable portion of it is occupied by rocky
mountains and barren defiles where cultivation is impossible. Its
population could never have been great, and though cities and villages
were crowded together on the plains and in the valleys, and perched at
times on almost inaccessible crags, the difficulty of finding sustenance
for their inhabitants prevented them from rivalling in size the European
or American towns of to-day. Like the country in which they dwelt, the
people of Palestine were necessarily but a small population when
compared with the nations of our modern age.

And yet it was just this scanty population which has left so deep an
impress on the thoughts and religion of mankind, and the narrow strip of
territory they inhabited which formed the battle-ground of the ancient
empires of the world. Israel was few in numbers, and the Canaan it
conquered was limited in extent; but they became as it were the centre
round which the forces of civilisation revolved, and towards which they
all pointed. Palestine, in fact, was for the eastern world what Athens
was for the western world; Athens and Attica were alike insignificant in
area and the Athenians were but a handful of men, but we derive from
them the principles of our art and philosophic speculation just as we
derive