'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from January 1847 to May 1849. Edited by the Secretary. Volume VIII.' [‎350] (459/496)

350
(Jod of Israel, Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed
again in this land.”* I have quoted these passages from Jeremiah not
only as commemorative of a remarkable episode in the history of Ana-
thoth, but as exhibiting a strong proof of the tenaciousness with which
the Jews regarded the hereditary tenure of the land, and the precautions
taken even in the sale of a field ; precautions which are to this day ob
served by the Turks, the present possessors of the land of Israel, who
will not admit of any Jew or Frank becoming permanent landholders.
A Mussulman at the present day, desirous of purchasing a field in Ana-
thoth, would have to go through similar forms of purchase, substitut
ing the Cazi of Jerusalem for Baruck in the registry of the deed of sale;
and the Mahkemeh for the earthen vessel. This account of the purchase
by the prophet, of the field in Anathoth, affords also a striking illustra
tion of the disordered state of the country under the Chaldean yoke
during the Babylonian captivity, and was made expressly by Jeremiah
as a token of the “ Gracious return” of the Jews to their native land,
which he then prophesied. The yoke of the Chaldeans hardly pressed
so heavy on the land as that of the Turks, at the time of my visit to the
prophet’s birthplace.
“ And fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say, It is deso
late without man or beast: it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.
Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe evidences, and seal them,
and take witnesses in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Je
rusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the mountains,
and in the cities of the valley, and in the cities of the south. For I
will cause their captivity to return, saith the Lord.”f It is sincerely to
be hoped that the hour is not far distant when the present curse under
which the land groans, from Dan, even unto Beersheba, shall be remov
ed and for ever.
Of ancient Anathoth J nought but a few rock-cut cisterns tomb and
foundations remain,—partly covered by a miserable village of some
twenty or thirty houses, inhabited chiefly by Arab Fellahin Arabic for ‘peasant’. It was used by British officials to refer to agricultural workers or to members of a social class employed primarily in agricultural labour. (Mussul-
* Jeremiah, xxix. 27, xxxii. 6, 15.
t Jeremiah, xxxii. 43, 44.
{ The first mention of Anathoth is in Joshua, xxi. 18, as one of the forty-fijgh^
cities alloted to the Levite priests, the children of the Kohath : it 0CCl l 1 . S « rl , v jt ; h
nexion with Geba-Gibeon and Almon : and again in Chronicles vi. 60, vn* ; <
Gibea and Alemeth. Abiathar the High Priest, whom Solomon deposed, saying „
<i Get thee to Anathoth into thine own fields, for thou art worthy ox. ^
(L Kings, ii. 26,) is supposed to be an ancestor of Jeremiah. Isaiah mentions i >
observed already (x. 30.)