SHIP. In few things is there greater danger of modern associations misleading the reader of the Scriptures than in regard to the subject of the pre sent article. To an Englishman a ship calls up the idea of the wooden walls of old England,' which have so long withstood the battle and the breeze,' and done so much to spread the fame and the in fluence of the British nation throughout the world. But both the ships and the navigation of the ancients, even of the most maritime states, were as dissimilar as things of the same kind can well be to the realities which the terms now represent Navi gation confined itself to coasting ; or if necessity, foul weather, or chance drove a vessel from the land, a regard to safety urged the commander to a speedy return, for he had no guide but such as the stars might afford under skies with which he was but imperfectly acquainted. And ships, whether designed for commercial or warlike purposes, were small in size and frail in structure, if our immense piles of oak and iron be taken as the objects of comparison.
The Jews cannot be said to have been a sea faring people ; yet their position on the map of the world is such as to lead us to feel that they could not have been ignorant of ships and the busi ness which relates thereunto. Phcenicia, the north western part of Palestine, was unquestionably among, if not at the head of the earliest cultivators of maritime affairs. Then the Holy Land itself lay with one side coasting a sea which was anciently the great highway of navigation, and the centre of social and commercial enterprise. Within its own borders it had a navigable lake. The Nile, with which river the fathers of the nation had become acquainted in their bondage, was another great thoroughfare for ships. And the Red Sea itself, which conducted towards the remote east, was at no great distance even from the capital of the land. Then at different points in its long line of sea-coast there were harbours of no mean repute. Let the reader call to mind Tyre and Sidon in Phcenicia, and Acre (Acco) and Jaffa (Joppa) in Palestine. Yet the decidedly agricultural bearing of the Israelitish constitution checked such a development of power, activity, and wealth, as these favourable opportunities might have called forth on behalf of seafaring pursuits. There 'can, however, be no
doubt that the arts of shipbuilding and of naviga tion came to Greece and Italy from the East, and immediately from the Levant ; whence we may justifiably infer that these arts, so far as they were cultivated in Palestine, were there in a higher state of perfection, at an early period at least, than in the more western parts of the world (Ezek. xxvii. ; Strabo, lib. xvi. ; Comenz, De Nave 7.),ri d). In the early periods of their histcny the Israelites themselves would partake to a small extent of this skill and of its advantages, since it was only by de grees that they gained possession of the entire land, and for a long time were obliged to give up the sovereignty of very much of their seabord to the Philistines and other hostile tribes. The earliest history of Palestinian ships lies in impenetrable darkness, so far as individual facts are concerned. In Gen. xlix. 13 there is, however, a prophecy, the fulfilment of which would connect the Israelites with shipping at an early period : Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea, and he shall be for a haven of ships, and his border shall be unto Zidon' (comp. Deut. xxxiii. 19 ; Josh. xix. io, seq.) . words which seem more fitly to describe the posi tion of Asher in the actual division of the land. These local advantages, however, could have been only partially improved, since we find Hiram, king of Tyre, acting as carrier by sea for Solomon, engaging to convey in floats to Joppa the timber cut in Lebanon for the temple, and leaving to the Hebrew prince the duty of transporting the wood from the coast to Jerusalem. And when, after having conquered Elath and Ezion-geber on the further arm of the Red Sea, Solomon proceeded to convert them into naval stations for his own pur poses, he was still, whatever he did himself, in debted to Hiram for shipmen that had knowledge of the sea' (t Kings ix. 26 ; x. 22). The effort, however, to form and keep a navy in connection with the East was not lastingly successful ; it soon began to decline, and Jehoshaphat failed when at a later day he tried to give new life and energy to the enterprise (t Kings xxii. 49, 5o).