PALESTINE ; IlaNatartvn; Palastina), the name now generally given to the country originally promised to, and long occupied by, the Israelites. The name is not strictly accu rate. Its use in this extended sense is compara tively modern, but it has, in recent times, become so definite and so universal among Biblical geo graphers and Eastern travellers, that it appears to be the most appropriate to place at the head of an article in which it is intended to give a general description of the geography of the Holy Land.
The name is Biblical in its origin ; but let it be un derstood at the outset, that, in the sense in which it is now employed, it does not occur in the original language of Scripture, nor in the A. V. Both in the English form Palestine (Joel iii. 4), and in the Latin Palestine (Exod. xv. 14 ; Is. xiv. 29, 31), it means Philistia, ' the land of the Philistines ;' and so it was understood by our translators. In the present article it is used in a much wider sense. It is employed in the same sense in which most of the Greek and Roman geographers understood it —as denoting the whole land allotted to the twelve tribes of Israel by Joshua. Some recent writers confine the name to the country west of the Jordan, and extending from Dan on the north to Beersheba on the south. Others again appear to extend it
northwards as far as the parallel of Hamath, and southward to the borders of Egypt. It is here used, however, to denote the country lying on the east as well as the west side of the Jordan ; while, on the other hand, it is confined to the territory actually divided by lot among the Israelites, thus excluding large sections of what is generally known as The Land of Promise.' Palestine, in fact, is here taken as synonymous with The Holy Land,'—the land given by the Lord to his chosen people, and long held by them.* For the sake of order, and to give as full a view of the country as the necessarily narrow limits of this work will permit, the following points will be taken up in succession : I. The Situation and Boundaries of Palestine.
II. The Names which have been given to the country in ancient and modern times.
III. The Physical Geography of Palestine, in cludingan account of its climate, plants, and animals.
IV. The Geology.
V. The Political and Historical Geography, with notices of the Inhabitants, ancient and modern.