Mount Carmel
Coming back to Lydda, we start with our pilgrims again toward Nazareth. The route north of Lydda is represented as leading by Antiratris and Bethar and Aner, in the Tretrarchy of Herod Archelaus. Entering the plain of Esdrælon, they would be in sight of Mount Carmel, overlooking the sea to their left. Carmel is one of the prominent objects in sight of which Christ grew up. It is one of the sacred mountains of Palestine. It is associated especially with Elijah—1 Kings 17:30. One thinks of the “Altar of God,” the “River Kishon,” and the failure of the “Priests of Baal.” The sea is invisible from the traditional spot of Elijah’s miracle, therefore the Prophet’s servant must have climbed to a higher point of Carmel to see a “little cloud no bigger than a man’s hand spring gradually over the sea.” Carmel is described as “a triangular block of mountains, the apex being the promontory on which the Carmelite monastery stands.” The little town of Haifa nestles under the promontory, and is thus sheltered from the southwest wind, and its bay forms the best harbor on the coast. Sweeping seaward, Carmel is the first of the hills of Israel to meet the rains. George Adam Smith, in his Historical Geography, says: “The two hills; Carmel and Tabor, stand on opposite ends of Esdrælon, each separated from the other hills, but Carmel’s long sweep northward invests him with the air of having ‘come there.’ As I live, saith the King, whose name is the Lord of Hosts, surely as Tabor is among the mountains, and as Carmel by the sea, so shall he come.” In 1799, the sick of Napoleon’s army were sheltered in the monastery at Carmel, but were killed by the Moslems.
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