During the sojourn in Egypt Naphtali increased with wonderful rapidity. Four sons went down with their father and Jacob; and at the Exodus the adult males numbered 53,400 (Num. i. 43). That number decreased considerably during the wilderness journey; for, when the census was taken at the arrival of the Israelites on the plains of Moab, the adult males of Naphtali only amounted to 45,400 (Num. xxvi. so).
Jacob's blessing had special reference to the character and achievements of the tribe ; that of Moses to the nature of their territory—' 0 Mph tali, satisfied with favour, andfill with the blessing of the Lord: possess thou the west and the south' (Deut. xxxiii. 23) A more literal and more accu rate rendering of the Hebrew would be, Naph tali, replete with favours, and full of the blessings of Jehovah ; possess thou the sea and Darom.' The word V, Yam, which in the A. V. is trans lated west,' evidently means the sea ;' that is, the Sea of Galilee, which lay in part within the territory of Naphtali. And the Hebrew term 0'117, Damn (` a circuit,' from the root 111= Amb.
to go round ;' see Gesenius, Thesaurus, s.v.), is most probably a proper name equivalent to Galli (` a circuit'), or Galilee, the name given in Joih. XX- 7, XXi. 32, and elsewhere, to a district amid the mountains of Naphtali [GALILEE], and of which Darom may have been the older appellation. The sea and Darom' would thus signify the region by the Lake of Galilee, and the mountains to the north of it. The rendering in the A. V.
is unintelligible. Both the LXX. and Vulgate render EP the sea' (see also the Chaldee, Rabbi Salomon, Bochart, Ainsworth, Montanus, and others).
The possessions allotted to Naphtali are de scribed in Josh. xix. 32-39. They lay at the north eastern angle of Palestine. On the east they were bounded by the Jordan and the lakes of Merorn and Galilee ; on the south by Zebulun ; on the west by Asher ; and on the north apparently by the river Leontes. Hammath was one of its cities, and it has been satisfactorily identified with the ruins around the warm springs a mile south of Tiberias. Consequently, to Naphtali belonged nearly the whole western shore of the Sea of Galilee [HAMMATH]. Naphtali possessed a greater variety of soil, scenery, and climate, than any of the other tribes. Its northern portions are the highlands of Palestine. The sublime ravine of the Leontes separates its mountains from the chain of Lebanon, of which, however, they may be regarded as a prolongation. The scenery is here rich and beautiful. The summit of the range is broad, pre senting an expanse of undulating table-land, orna mented with broad belts and irregular clumps of evergreen oak, and having here and there little upland plains, covered with verdure, and bordered with thickets of arbutus and hawthorn. In the
centre of this park-like region lie the ruins of the sanctuary of the tribe, the northern city of refuge, Kedesh-Naphtali. The ridge rises gradually to wards the south, and culminates at Safed, which has an elevation of nearly 300o feet. Two other peaks, a few miles westward, are moo feet higher, and are the loftiest points in Western Palestine (see Van de Velde, Illenzoir, p. 177). On the western brow of the ridge the tribes of Asher and Naphtali joined, the former having allotted to it the western slopes and narrow plain of Phceuicia (Josh. xix. 24-30). On the east, the mountains of Naphtali break abruptly down in grey cliffs and wooded slopes into the rich valley of the Jordan. On the north brow of these slopes stands the massive castle of Harlin, probably the ancient Beth-Rehob ; and twelve miles south of it, com manding the waters of Merom, are the ruins of Kasyfin, which may perhaps mark the site of the capital of the northern Canaanites—Hazor. The Jordan valley, though soft, and in places marshy, is extremely fertile. Here the people of Sidon established at an early period an agricultural colony to supply their city with grain and fruits. The region, or around Kedesh was anciently called Galil, a name subsequently ex tended to the whole of Northern Palestine ; and as a large number of foreigners settled among the mountains—descendants of the Canaanites, and others from Phoenicia and Syria—it was called ' Galilee of the Gentiles' [GALILEE].
The southern section of Naphtali was the garden of Palestine. The little plains along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and the vales that run up into the mountains, are of unrivalled fertility. Josephus described the plain on the shore of the lake, then called Gennesaret, as an earthly paradise, where the choicest fruits grew luxuriantly, and where eternal spring reigned. His words were not much exaggerated ; for now, though more a wilderness than a paradise, its surpassing richness is apparent. The short is lined with a wide border of oleander; behind this is a tangled thicket of the Tote tree; and here and there are clumps of dwarf palms. The plain beyond, except the few spots cultivated, is covered with gigantic thistles (Joseph. Bell. 7trd. iii. 3. 2; and to. 8; Robinson, B. R., ii. 402).