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Bible Dictionaries
Ptolemais
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or PTOLEMAIS ( Acts 21:7 ). The same as Acco ( Judges 1:31 ), now the port ‘Akka , called in the West, since Crusading times. Acre or St. Jean d’Acre . Acco received the name Ptolemais some time in the 3rd cent b.c., probably in honour of Ptolemy ii., but although the name was in common use for many centuries, it reverted to its Semitic name after the decline of Greek influence. Although so very casually mentioned in OT and NT, this place has had as varied and tragic a history as almost any spot in Palestine. On a coast peculiarly unfriendly to the mariner, the Bay of ‘Akka is one of the few spots where nature has lent its encouragement to the building of a harbour; its importance in history has always been as the port of Galilee and Damascus, of the Hauran and Gilead, while in the days of Western domination the Roman Ptolemais and the Crusading St. Jean d’Acre served as the landing-place of governors, of armies, and of pilgrims. So strong a fortress, guarding so fertile a plain, and a port on the highroad to such rich lands to north, east, and south, could never have been overlooked by hostile armies, and so we find the Egyptian Thothmes iii., Setl i., and Rameses ii., the Assyrian Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal, and several of the Ptolemys engaged in its conquest or defence. It is much in evidence in the history of the Maccabees, a queen Cleopatra of Egypt holds it for a time, and here some decades later Herod the Great entertains Cæsar. During the Jewish revolt it is an important base for the Romans, and both Vespasian and Titus visit it. In later times, such warriors as Baldwin i. and Guy de Lusignan, Richard CÅ“ur de Lion and Saladin, Napoleon i. and Ibrahim Pasha are associated with its history.
In the OT it is mentioned only as one of the cities of Asher (Judges 1:31 ), while in Acts 21:7 it occurs as the port where St. Paul landed, ‘saluted the brethren, and abode with them one day,’ on his way to the new and powerful rival port, Cæsarea, which a few decades previously had sprung up to the south.
The modern ‘Akka (11,000 inhabitants) is a city, much reduced from its former days of greatness, situated on a rocky promontory of land at the N. extremity of the bay to which it gives its name. The sea lies on the W. and S., and somewhat to the E. The ancient harbour lay on the S, and was protected by a mole running E. from the S. extremity, and one running S. from the S.E. corner of the city. Ships of moderate dimensions can approach near the city, and the water is fairly deep. The walls, partially Crusading work, which still surround the city, are in the ruined state to which they were reduced in 1840 by the bombardment by the English fleet under Sir Sidney Smith. Extending from Carmel in the south to the ‘Ladder of Tyre’ in the north, and eastward to the foothills of Galilee, is the great and well-watered ‘Plain of Acre,’ a region which, though sandy and sterile close to the sea, is of rich fertility elsewhere. The two main streams of this plain are the Nahr Na‘mân (R. Belus), just south of ‘Akka, and the Kishon near Carmel.
Under modern conditions, Haifa , with its better anchorage for modern steamships, and its new railway to Damascus, is likely to form a successful rival to ‘Akka .
E. W. G. Masterman.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Ptolemais'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/p/ptolemais.html. 1909.
