TARSHISH (uiThro, a celebrated part of the ancient world, about ihe exact position of which opinions are much divided. In this case, however, as in many other Scriptural difficulties, that is clear which is important, while the doubtful or the hid den is of comparatively little moment. We may, or we may not, be able to fix with certainty the exact spot where Tarshish lay ; but the particulars which Scripture supplies respecting it are too numerous and too definite to allow any doubt as to what was the character and condition of thf. place itself, Tarshish may be described, and, therefore, may be known, though we still remain in uncertainty on what point in the map the name should be inscribed. And while the exact lo cality is of small concern, the important details which the Bible presents may, nevertheless, render us aid in attempting to determine where Tarshish lay.
We will first give a summary of the notices which the Scriptures afford respecting Tarshish. In the great genealogical table (Gen. x. 4, 5) it is placed among the sons of Javan ; Elishah and Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim. By these were the islands of the Gentiles divided.' This refers the mind at once to the north-western parts of the Mediter ranean. To a similar conclusion does other Scrip tural language lead. In Ps. lxxii. to it is said, The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents ;' and in 2 Chron. ix. 21, we read, ‘The king's (Solomon) ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Hiram ; every three years once came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.' Now Hiram's city, Tyre, lay on the Mediterranean coast, and it is easy to see how Solomon's vessels might be as. sociated with his in a voyage towards the west to fetch merchandise. In Is. lxvi. 19, we find Tar shish mentioned in a way which confirms this view : And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations (or Gentiles) ; to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the isles afar off.' These passages make it clear that Tarshish lay at a distance from Juda, and that that distance was in a north-westerly direction ; and the mention of such names as Lud, Javan, and the isles, carries the mind to the extreme north-west, and suggests Spain as the place for Tarshish. But Tarshish must have been on the sea-coast, for it was famous for its ships. The ships of Tarshish' were cele brated under that designation, which may have been used in that wide sense in which we speak of an East Indiaman, reference being made rather to the place whither the vessel traded, than to that where it was built ; or the phrase may have come to denote a particular kind of vessel—i.e. trading or merchant ships, front the celebrity of Tarshish as a commercial port (t Kings x. 22 ; Ps. xlviii. 7; Is. ii. 16 ; xxiii. lx. 9; Ezek. xxvii. 25). Some six thnes do we meet with the phrase, ships or navy of Tarshish ; which of itself shows how noted a seaport we have under consideration, if it does not prove also that in process of time the terms bad come to describe vessels according to their occu pation rather than their country, as we say 'a slaver,' denoting a ship engaged in the slave-trade (comp. Horat. svis Liburnis,' Ce77111. 1. 27 ; Bithyna carina,' 35 ; trabe Cypria,' t). In Ezek. xxvii. 12-25, the place is described by its pursuits and its merchandise Tarshish (here again in connection with a western country, Javan, ver. 13) was thy (Tyre) nzerchant, in all riches ; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs. The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market, and thou wast replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas.' The last words are admirably descriptive of the south western coast of Spain. How could a Hebrew poet better describe the locality where the songs of the sailors of Tarshish m?..cle the name of Ty:c
glorious? Let the reader turn to the map, and cast his eye on the embouchure of the Guidal quivir, and say if this spot is not pre-eminently, when viewed from Palestine, ' in the midst of the seas.' There is a propriety too in the words found in Ps. xlviii. 7 (comp. Ezek. xxviii. 26), Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind,' if we suppose merchant vessels working eastwardly up the Mediterranean towards Tyre, encountering an east or rather north-east gale, which. is a very violent and destructive wind to thisiday. Jeremiah (x. 9) tells us that silver spread Into plates' was brought from Tarshish ; and from the connection the silver appeals to have been elaborately wrought ; whence we infer that at one period there was in Tarshish the never-failing connection found be tween commerce, wealth, and art. An important testimony occurs in Ezek. xxxviii. 13 : Sheba and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil ? to carry away silver and gold ? to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil ?' whence it is clear that Tarshish was an opulent place, abounding in cattle and goods, in silver and gold. We are not sure that the words, the young lions thereof,' are intended to be taken literally. They may refer to the lion-hearted chiefs of the nation ; but if they are understood as implying that lions were literally found in Tarshish, they only concur with other parts of ,Scripture in showing that the name is to be taken in a wide acceptation, as denoting, besides modern An dalusia, those parts of Africa which lay near and opposite to Spain. Nor is it impossible that a part of the trade of Tarshish lay in these and in other ani mals ; for we certainly know that Solomon's ships brought that prince apes and peacocks : the lions may have been caug,ht in Africa, and conveyed in ships of Tarshish to Tyre. Sheba and Dedan, how ever, are mentioned here in connection with Tar shish, and they were certainly eastern countries, lying probably on the western side of the Persian Gulf in Arabia. But the object of the writer may have been to mention the countries placed at the ex tremities of the then known world—Tarshish on the west, Sheba and Dedan on the east. In Is. xxiii. 1-14, we read, as a part of the burden of Tyre, that the ships of Tarshish are called on to howl at her destruction, because Tyre afforded them no longer a commercial port and a haven ; words which entirely agree with the hypothesis which makes Tarshish a city on the sea-bord of Spain, trading up the Mediterranean to Tyre. Nor are the words found in the 6th verse discord ant : Pass ye over to Tarshish ; howl, ye inhabi tants of the isles.' Let us now turn to the book of Jonah (i. 1-3 ; iv. 2). The prophet was com manded to go and prophesy against Nineveh on the Tigris. For this he should, on quitting Jeru salem, have gone in an easterly direction ; but he shunned the duty and fled. Of course he naturally fled in a direction the opposite of that in which the avoided object lay : he proceeded, in fact, to Tar shish. Tarshish then must have been to the west, and not to the east, of Jerusalem. In order to reach Tarshish he went to Joppa, and took ship for the place of his destination, thus still keeping in a westerly course, and showing that Tarshish lay to the west. In Tarshish, indeed, placed in the extreme north-west, he might well expect to be distant enough from Nineveh. It is also worthy of notice that, when he arrived at Joppa on the coast of Palestine, he found a ship going to Tarshish ;' which fact we can well understand if Tarshish lay to the west, but by no means if it lay on the Red Sea.