Can stones speak?  Can rocks make their voice to be heard?  The Lord said of His people on His entrance into Jerusalem, “If these should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out.”  And this is very much what those very stones are now doing; for the stones of Palestine are beginning to speak with a voice so clear and decisive that it seems a perfect marvel that any thinking man should be able to resist their evidence.  Now therefore, if God permit, we will study their testimony; we will put the rocks into the witness-box, and endeavour calmly to learn from them what they teach us of the truth of God.  There are three subjects on which their evidence is conclusive—the geographical accuracy, the historical truth, and the prophetic inspiration of the Scriptures.  Let us examine them on all three points, and may that divine Spirit who inspired the word of His own great grace bring it home to our understandings and our hearts!
I.  The Geographical Accuracy.

We must remember that a large portion of the Old Testament consists in the history of that chosen line which connected the Lord Jesus Christ with Abraham, p. 46and that the country which we generally call “Palestine” was given to that family as their home.  It was in that country that Abraham sojourned, and that his family lived for the 1,400 years between the Exodus and the Advent.  It is obvious therefore that the history of that family during all those centuries must abound in allusions to the different places in that country, and as the history enters very much into social life, we must naturally expect very frequent allusions to the places in which the people lived.

It is important for us also to remember that the history was not one book written by one author at one time, but that much of it was evidently contemporary history; so that there were different books written by different authors at different times, beginning with Moses 3,300 years ago, and ending, as some suppose, with Ezra, or Nehemiah, about 2,300 years ago.

Now the question is, “Do the various allusions to places which lie scattered up and down the history agree or disagree with what we know of those places from observation on the spot?”  Through the patient labours of some eminently scientific men working for the Palestine Exploration Fund, we know a vast deal more of the country than has ever been known since the dispersion of the people.  We have before us the result of a most careful scientific survey, from which we may learn in perfect confidence the evidence of the rocks.  What we have to do therefore is to lay side by side the evidence of the rocks and the evidence of the p. 47Books—to compare the two carefully, and to ascertain whether or not the “witnesses” agree.  The ancient rule was, that “out of the mouth of two witnesses shall every word be established.”  Here then there are two witnesses—the rocks and the Books—do they or do they not agree?

Let us begin with the Book of Joshua, a book recording the original invasion of the country, and the distribution of the land among the tribes.  In the ten chapters, beginning with the 13th, we have a full account of that distribution, and a clear definition of the boundaries of eleven tribes, with a list of forty-eight cities assigned to the sons of Levi.  This list and these boundaries have been most carefully examined by the officers of the Palestine Exploration Fund, and the remarkable result is that they can trace almost every place mentioned in Joshua; and what is more remarkable still, “there is scarcely a village which does not retain for its desolate heap or its modern hovels the Arabic equivalent for the name written down by Joshua 3,300 years ago.”  In many cases there is nothing more than a cluster of a few wretched Arab huts, or a heap of shapeless ruins; but so complete has been the identification that there is no doubt left respecting Joshua’s boundaries; and if the Jews were to return to-morrow, and in returning were to observe the distinction of the tribes, those officers could at once point out to them their several homes, and show them exactly what portion of the country was originally assigned to them by lot.

p. 48This general fact is quite sufficient to prove the general accuracy of the geography of the Book.  But the general fact does not stand alone, and there are countless details which are almost more conclusive than the close agreement which we find existing between the list by Joshua and that by scientific men.  Let us consider one of these details, and examine one neighbourhood in the light of modern science.  The neighbourhood shall be that of Bethel and Hai.  Respecting Bethel, no one, I believe entertains a doubt.  It was named by Jacob “Bethel,” or the house of God.  It was afterwards called “Bethaven,” or “the house of vanity,” in consequence of the idolatry of Jeroboam; and the extensive ruins now found there are called Beitin.  Now Bethel does not stand alone, for it is frequently connected with Hai; so that Abraham’s second halting-place, as recorded in Gen. xii. 8, was on a mountain “having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east.”  There were two ranges of hills running from north to south, with a valley between them, and on a hill standing in that valley Abraham pitched his tent, and built an altar unto the Lord.  Now, as I have just said, there is not the slightest doubt about the identification of Bethel.  But what are we to say of Hai?  In Joshua viii. we have an accurate description of its capture, and every detail of the attack can be verified on the spot.  But we cannot find the name.  There is a heap, or mound, on the slope of the hill, which no doubt marks the site.  But the name Hai is completely lost.  The p. 49name given to the mound is Tell.  Now Tell is the word for heap, so that Tell Ashtereh is the heap of Ashtaroth, and Tell Kedes the heap of Kadesh.  But to this heap there is no such name attached, and the only name is Tell.  “Tell” alone marks the spot.  And now turn to Joshua viii. 28: “And Joshua burnt Hai, and made it an heap” (i.e. a Tell) “for ever, even a desolation unto this day.”  The name given by the modern Bedouin is exactly that of the ancient record, and the testimony of the stones is in perfect agreement with the scriptural narrative.

But this is not all.  I have already pointed out that the hill between Bethel and Hai was Abraham’s second halting-place; and if we turn to Gen. xiii. we shall find, in verses 3, 4, that after he had been down into Egypt he returned to that same spot, and there once more he called on the name of the Lord.  It was there that he made Lot the generous offer of the choice of the land, and that “Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan.”  But at first sight this seems impossible, for between Bethel and Jordan there is a lofty range of hills running from north to south, and completely obstructing the view; and so the merely superficial observer might say that the Book was wrong.  But before we come to any such decision we must consult the stones.  And what will they say to us?  Go up the heights above Bethel on the west, and they will tell you that there is no view of the plain of Sodom there.  Go up on the eastern side to the Tell that once p. 50was Hai, and there is no view there.  But now go to the mountain having Bethel on the west and Hai on the east, the very spot where, according to the 13th chapter of Genesis, Abraham and Lot were standing; and there through a gap in the hills you see the very sight that tempted Lot, and you look on the plains of Sodom, as Lot looked on them not much less than 4,000 years ago.

And what makes the agreement still more wonderful is that the Book was written by one who was not an inhabitant of the country, and who had never stood on that mountain-top.  It is obvious from the history that Moses was never there, and accordingly it is obvious from the Book that it was written on the eastern side of Jordan.  In all the Books written in Palestine the expression “Beyond Jordan” is employed to describe the eastern side.  But it is not so with the Book of Genesis.  In chapter l. 10 there is the mention of the “threshing-floor of Atad,” where Joseph and his company made a mourning for Jacob, and in verse 11 this place is said to be “beyond Jordan.”  But Atad was on the west side of Jordan, for it was amongst the Canaanites, and is believed by learned men to have been between the Jordan and Jericho.  To Moses, therefore, approaching Canaan from the east, it was “beyond Jordan.”  To any pretender writing after the occupation of the promised land it would have been “on this side Jordan.”  But to Moses, who died on the eastern side, and never set his foot on the western side, it was “beyond.”  He may have p. 51seen it from Pisgah, but that was all.  He never set his foot there, for he never crossed the Jordan.  So he never set his foot on the mount between Bethel and Ai; but he wrote with the most minute geographical accuracy.  And thus we have the testimony of the stones that the Book of Genesis was not only the Book of truth, but, may we not add, that Moses was inspired by God Himself to write with such perfect truthfulness of places which he had never seen?

This one instance must suffice as an illustration of geographical accuracy, and we may hasten to consider the second point; viz.:—
II.  Historical Truth.

To this I turn with deeper interest, because it has been denied.  Voltaire, for example, describes Palestine as one of the worst countries of Asia, comparing it to Switzerland, and says it can only be esteemed fertile “when compared with the desert.” (Keith, p. 106.)  There cannot be one moment’s doubt that in such statements he exceeded fact.  But others have pointed to the desolate hillsides, and asked the question whether such a country could ever have supported a population as dense as that of Norfolk or Suffolk.&nbs............