Chap. 18. A Pisgah-sight, or short survey of Palestine in generall; and how it might maintain 1300000 men.
PAlestine is bounded on the North with mount Libanus; West, with the mid-land-sea; South, with the wildernesse of Paran, parting it from Egypt; and East, with the mountains of Gilead, and the river of Arnon. To give it the most favourable dimen∣sions; From the foot of Libanus to Beersheba, North and South, may be allowed 210 miles: and from Ramoth-Gilead to Endor, East and West, seventie; which is the constant breadth of the countrey. In which compasse in Davids time were main∣tained thirteen hundred thousand men, besides women, chil∣dren, and impotent persons: and yet the tribes of Benjamin and Levi were not reckoned. True this must needs be, for Truth hath said it: Yet is it wonderfull. For though the united Provin∣ces in the Low-countreys maintain as many people in as little a plot of ground, yet they feed not on home-bred food; but have Poland for their granarie, the British ocean for their fish-pond, High-Germanie for their wine-cellar; and by the benefit of their harbours unlock the store-houses of all other countreys. It fared not thus with the Jews, whose own countrey fed them all. And yet the seeming impossibilitie of so many kept in so small a land will be abated, if we consider these particulars;
- 1. People in those hot countreys had not so hot appetites for the quantitie of the meat eaten, nor gluttonous palates for the varietie of it.
- 2. The countrey rising and falling into hills and vales, gained many acres of ground: whereof no notice is taken in a map; for therein all things presented are conceived to be in plan••: And so the land was farre roomthier then the scale of miles doth make it.
- 3. They had pasturage to feed their cattel in, in out-coun∣treys beyond Palestine. Thus the tribe of Reuben grased their cattel east-ward, even to the river Euphrates.
- 4. Lastly, the soyl was transcendently fruitfull, as appeareth by that great bunch of grapes carried by two men: For though many a man hath not been able to bear wine, it is much that one should be loaden with one cluster of grapes.