CARMEL (n-in, A garden or fruitful field; Sept. KdpusiXos), a name given to a mountain range on the coast of Palestine, and also to a town in the south of Judah.
1. Mount Carmel.—The word Carmel is of fre quent occurrence in Scripture as a common noun, and signifies 'a highly cultivated tract,' as con trasted with illidbar, 'a wilderness.' Thus, in Jeremiah ii. 7, brought you into a land like a garden 67?1m7 that ye might eat the fruit thereof;' and Is. xxix. 17, 'Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitfiil field (5p7n).' In some passages it is difficult to determine whether the word is used as a common noun or as a proper name ; as 2 Kings xix. 23 ; 2 Chron. xxvi. to. The fact seems to be that the mountain range received the name Carmel as descriptive of its character—fertile, wooded, and blooming ; and that the mountain it self came afterwards to' be used as an emblem of richness and beauty. Thus, in Is. xxxv. 2 The glory of Lebanon is given unto it, the beauty of Carmel and Sharon.' These and similar allusions become doubly emphatic and expressive when we connect them with the picturesque scenery, the natural richness, and the luxuriant foliage and her bage of Cannel.
The ridge of Carmel branches off from the northern end of the mountains of Samaria, and runs in a north-westerly direction between Sharon and the plain of Acre. Its extreme length is about sixteen miles, the greatest breadth of its base five, and its highest point 175o feet above the sea. It projects far into the Mediterranean, form ing a bold promontory—the only one along the bare coast of Palestine. At the place of junction with the mountains of Ephraim the ridge is low, and the scenery bleak and tame. The ancient caravan road from Tyre, Sidon, and the coast of Phcenicia to Sharon and Egypt, crosses this sec tion by a pass called Wady el-Milh. At the mouth of this wady, in the great plain of Esdraelon, is Tell KaimOn, the site of the ancient 7okneam of Carmel (Josh. xii. 22). Immediately on the west side of Wady el-Mills, Carmel rises up in all its beauty, thickly sprinkled with oaks, and rich in pasturage. Towards the plain of Acre it here pre sents steep and lofty peaks, clad in dark foliage, rernindina nne of the hills ahnve Heidelherv. The heights are all wooded, not densely like a forest, out more like an English park ; and long deep ravines of singular wildness wind down the moun tain sides, filled with tangled copse, fragrant with hawthorn, myrtle, and jessamine, and alive with the murmur of tiny brooks and the song of birds.
At intervals along the slopes are open glades, car peted with green grass, and spangled with myriads of wild flowers of every hue (Robinson's B. R., iii. 114, sq.; Van de Velde, i. 317, sq.; Thomson, Land and the Book, 487, sq.). The western ex tremity of the ridge—that, unfortunately, with which ordinary travellers are most familiar, and from which they take their impressions—is more bleak than the eastern. Its sides are steep and rocky, scantily covered with dwarf shrubs and aro matic herbs, and having only a few scattered trees here and there in the glens (compare Van de Velde, i. 293 ; The Crescent and the Cross, i. 54, sq.) The writer has frequently visited the mountain range of Carmel. He has been there at all seasons, and he can confidently affirm that no part of Palestine west of the Jordan can be compared with it for the picturesque beauty of its scenery, the luxuriance of its herbage, and the brilliancy and variety of its flowers. Well might such a mountain suggest to the Hebrew royal naturalist the words : 'Thine head upon thee is like Carmel' (Cant. vii. 5). Re ference is made to thick tresses of the 'Bride,' covering the head, and interwoven, as is still the custom in Syria, with garlands of flowers, and studded with gold ornaments and gems. The fer tile plains on the north and south of the ridge add greatly to the effect. Esdraelon, and its continua tion, the plain of Acre, are like a vast meadow. That 'ancient river, the river Kishon,' winds through it in a tortuous bed, deeply cut in the al luvial soil ; in places laving the rocky roots of the mountain. The declivities on the southern side towards Sharon are more gradual. Low spurs shoot out here and there into the undulating pas ture-lands of that rich plain, terminating in wooded knolls or broken banks, covered with brushwood and brake. The wood that clothes the greater part of Carmel is the prickly oak (quern's ilex); the foliage is thus evergreen, and the underwood is mainly composed of evergreen shrubs. Conse quently Carmel might well be taken by Isaiah (xxxv. 2) as the type of natural beauty ; while Amos (i. 2) might with equal truth and appro priateness regard the withering of the top of Car mel as the type of utter desolation.