the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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Bible Encyclopedias
Judea
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or Judæ´a, the southernmost of the three divisions of the Holy Land. It denoted the kingdom of Judah as distinguished from that of Israel. But after the captivity, as most of the exiles who returned belonged to the kingdom of Judah, the name Judea (Judah) was applied generally to the whole of Palestine west of the Jordan (; ). Under the Romans, in the time of Christ, Palestine was divided into Judea, Galilee, and Samaria (; ), the last including the whole of the southern part west of the Jordan. But this division was only observed as a political and local distinction, for the sake of indicating the part of the country, just as we use the name of a county (;;;; ); but when the whole of Palestine was to be indicated in a general way, the term Judea was still employed.
It is only Judea, in the provincial sense, that requires our present notice, the country at large being described in the article Palestine. In this sense, however, it was much more extensive than the domain of the tribe of Judah, even more so than the kingdom of the same name. There are no materials for describing its limits with precision; but it included the ancient territories of Judah, Benjamin, Dan, Simeon, and part of Ephraim.
Judea is a country full of hills and valleys. The hills are generally separated from one another by valleys and torrents, and are, for the most part, of moderate height, uneven, and seldom of any regular figure. The rock of which they are composed is easily converted into soil, which being arrested by the terraces when washed down by the rains, renders the hills cultivable in a series of long, narrow gardens, formed by these terraces from the base upwards. In this manner the hills were in ancient times cultivated most industriously, and enriched and beautified with the fig-tree, the olive-tree, and the vine; and it is thus that the scanty cultivation which still subsists is now carried on. But when the inhabitants were rooted out, and the culture neglected, the terraces fell to decay, and the soil which had been collected in them was washed down into the valleys, leaving only the arid rock, naked and desolate. This is the general character of the scenery; but in some parts the hills are beautifully wooded, and in others the application of the ancient mode of cultivation still suggests to the traveler how rich the country once was and might be again, and how beautiful the prospects which it offered. As, however, much of this was the result of cultivation, the country was probably anciently, as at present, naturally less fertile than either Samaria or Galilee.
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Judea'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/j/judea.html.
