78 HEBREW LIFE AND CUSTOM
inconvenience. Zedekiah had tried to set aside this ancient
custom,1 but being panic-stricken at the presence of the
Chaldean army outside Jerusalem he entered into a solemn
Covenantto Complywith it. When, however, the danger was
temporarily over,2 those who under pressure had released
their slaves reclaimed them. From the first appearance of
the Chaldean army in Palestine to the temporary raising of
the siege of Jerusalem was apparently less than a year :
hence the refusal to release the slaves, the freeing of them
under pressure, the raising of the siege of Jerusalem, and
the re-allotment of the land of Anathoth, may all have
occurred within a twelvemonth.
Was it only arable land that was nahala, or were the
grazing grounds of the village community allotted in a
similar way ? There are traces of the former allotment of
pasturage even in the British Isles : such a trace may be
found in the Lake District, where the unenclosed fell lands,
though now freehold, are apportioned to the various farms
by a system of ‘ stints ’, i.e. each farm is ‘ stinted ’ to a
particular number of sheep which may graze on the fell.3
In the exilic and post-exilic literature we read of various
open lands surrounding the various townships and appar-
ently belonging to them.4
Did nahala ever include vineyards ? One’s first impulse
is to answer in the negative. Such a vineyard as that
which is described in Isaiah’s parable is evidently freehold;
for no one would go to the expense of building a surround-
ing wall, and a tower, and constructing a wine-press in a
vineyard of which he had the use for only six years.3 More-
over the prediction in Isa. vii. 23 f. clearly refers to fenced-
in vineyards, since they are pictured as places in which
* Jer. xxxiv. 8. Note that the dating of Ezek. xx and xxi (cf. xx.
ɪ) is in harmony with Jer. lii. 29. There is a difference of one year
in the dating followed in 2 Kings xxv. 8.
’ Jer. xxxvii. 5, ɪɪ, as above.
3 See for example, Gomme, The Village Community, pp. 205, 206.
* Cf. Ezek. xlv. 2 ; ɪ Chron. v. ι6. 5 ɪsa. v. ɪ f.
TERRACING, FERTILITY 79
in the cessation of agriculture wild animals, such as
leopards, can find cover, but which will not be trodden
down by oxen and sheep.
The ɪ mention of vineyards raises another question, to
which it is unfortunately impossible from the evidence to
give a quite certain answer. In the pre-exilic account of
Judah ( Gen. xlix. 8-12 ), Judah is clearly regarded as possess-
ing such a multitude of vines, though of course the language
is poetical hyperbole, that people do not hesitate to tie to
the vines their riding-animals, and the people of Judah can
habitually drink wine enough to make their eyes bloodshot.2
It is impossible to apply such a description to modern
Judaea, and there can be little doubt that the fertility of
Judaea in the days of the Hebrew monarchy was very much
greater than is possible on the present hill-slopes with their
scanty soil. It is difficult, therefore, to resist the conjecture
that the hill-slopes were formerly terraced, the soil being thus
prevented from being washed away in heavy rain. The
vineyard of Isa. v has a rock-hewn wine-press, which sug-
gests that in parts of it the rock was pretty near the surface.
If then all the soil were shallow, Judaea, with only such a
rainfall as the land now possesses, could scarcely produce
the best grapes without artificial irrigation? So far as I
am aware there is no direct reference in the Bible to
terracing, but traces remain of the existence of terraces in
districts so widely removed as Great Britain and Ireland,
China, and India, and the probability that it goes back in
this country beyond the Celtic period,4 makes it at least
not improbable that it had been long known among the
Mediterranean agricultural peoples generally.
It is noteworthy that Palestinian vineyards were not
apparently scattered all over the country, but belonged
to certain localities. Balaam in eastern Palestine rides
, From this point onwards the MS. is unrevised. Only the piece concerned
with the administration of law and justice was actually given in the lectures
(F. C. B.). * Cf. Prov. xxiii. 29, 30.
3 See Deut. xi. ɪo, ɪɪ. 4 Gomme, The Village Community, p. 95.