BETHLEHEM (nil ip, House of breadf Sept. and N. T. BOXEep. ; Arabic ' House offiesh'). r. Bethlehem and its eventful history have been before the world for nearly 2000 2A years. In sacred interest it is only second to Jerusalem. Yet there is nothing in the village itself, or the surrounding scenery, to attract atten tion, if we except the shrines which superstition has erected over the sites of apocryphal holy places.
Bethlehem is five miles south of Jerusalem, a little to the east of the road to Hebron. It occu pies part of the summit and sides of a narrow ridge which shoots out eastward from the central chain of the mountains, and breaks down abruptly into deep valleys on the north, south, and east. The steep slopes beneath the village are carefully terraced; and the terraces sweep in grace ful curves round the ridge from top to bottom. In the valleys below, and on a little plain to the east ward, are some corn-fields, whose fertility, doubt less, gave the place its name, Bethlehem, house of bread,' while the dense foliage of the olives and fig-trees ranged in stately rows along the hill sides, and the glistening leaves of the mines that hang in festoons over the terrace banks, serve to remind us, amid the desolations of the whole land, and espe cially in contrast with the painful barrenness of the neighbouring desert, that this little district is still Ephrath, the fruitful.' Immediately beyond these fields and terraced gardens is the wilderness of Judtea.' It is in full view from the heights of Bethlehem. White limestone hills thrown con fusedly together, with deep ravines winding in and out among them, constitute its chief features. Not a solitary tree, or shrub, or tuft of green grass, is anywhere to be seen. The village contains about 500 houses. The streets are narrow and crooked ; but being here and there arched over, and having the rude balconies of the quaint houses projecting irregularly along their sides, they have a pic turesque medimval look about them. On the
eastern brow of the ridge, separated from the vil lage by an open esplanade, is the great convent, grim and massive as an old baronial castle. It is built over and around the traditional sanctuary of Bethlehem. The buildings composing the con vent are large and splendid. They are all encom passed by a lofty wall, whose huge buttresses rest on the shelving rocks far below. The nucleus of the whole is a rock-hewn cave, measuring 38 feet by It feet; at one end of which is the following inscription :— ' Hic de virgine Maria Chthtzes nalus est.' Over the cave stands the splendid Basilica of Helena, the oldest monument of Chris tian architecture in the world. It is now sadly out of repair ; but its four rows of marble Cor inthian columns are still grand and imposing.
Bethlehem is first mentioned in connection with the death of Rachel. A mile north of the village, on the main road from Jerusalem and Bethel, is a little building, which marks to this day the place of her sepulture. The position of this tomb serves at once to illustrate a touching incident of gospel history, and to explain a difficult point of sacred geography. We read in Matt. ii. 16, that Herod ' slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all time coasts thereof' Bethlehem is in Judah; but the southern border of Benjamin extended to the tomb of Rachel (I Sam. x. 2) ; and a part of that tribe thus fell within the coasts' of Beth lehem. The infants there were included in the massacre. With singular pathos the evangelist adapts the words of Jeremiah to this calamity `In Ramah there was a voice heard .. . Rachel weeping for her children,' etc. Why should the mother of Benjamin weep for the murdered infants of the tribe of Judah ? The reason is now obvious. Many of Rachel's own offspring were included in the massacre; and her spirit is represented as it rising from the tomb and rending the air with cries, which are beard in Ramah, one of Benjamin's chief cities.