Dress (thob) of black crepe with central panel of red, green, and bright green stitch embroidery of floral and geometric motifs; red dominant cross-stitch embroidery; long, pointed sleeves with green insertion; bands of embroidery down the full-length of the caftan with animal and floral motifs; Bedouin woman's dress from Palestine.
We are at the foot of Mount Quarantania, the traditional Mount of our Lord's Temptation. Perhaps you can see that it is perforated with caves. The belief that this was really the place of our Lord's fasting through forty days, led to its becoming for centuries the resort of hermits, who dug out caves in the soft rock and dwelt in them, regarding this mountain as holy ground. But Jesus came to this place - if this be the true location - not with the purpose of fasting or meeting Satan. He came immediately after his baptism and the over-powering outpouring of the Spirit, to plan for the new life that opened before him. His fasting was an incident, and unconscious; for, in the intensity of his thoughts and feelings, he never thought of food. It may be that on yonder level summit, he stood and in vision saw the kingdom of the world, sweep before his eyes, as in reward if like Ramses, like Sargon, like Alexander, like Caesar and like Napoleon later, he would live for this world and self, and not for God alone.
There is one hill in southern Palestine which we must not forget to visit. It is the Hill Machpelah, bought by Abraham for a burial place. At the foot of this hill stands the city of Hebron, whose history can be traced uninterruptedly through four thousand years. Here Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived in their several generations. Here ten centuries after Abraham, David reigned as King of Judah for seven years before he received the crown of all the tribes. Here the conspiracy of wicked Absalom had its beginning, more prosperous and promising than its ending. Here, or not far distant, was the home of the good priest Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist. Can you see just in the farther edge of the city, near the right, two towers rising above the roofs? Here are the minarets of the Mosque of Hebron, upon which we look as our next view.
In the foreground you see the excavation recently made in the foundations of the ancient city of Jericho, revealing its successive walls of different periods. On the right is the old wall, on the left the foundations of public buildings and private homes. Who knows but one of these pits may be the cellar under the house of the rich tax-collector Zaccheus, who entertained Jesus? But our interest at present is not with Jericho, but with that mountain which stands west of the city, beyond the plain. That is called Mount Quaratania. The word means "forty days"; and the name has been given because of the tradition that this mountain was the place of our Lord's fasting and temptation, after his baptism and before his ministry. Beyond this mountain lie that desolate, desert region the Wilderness of Judea which has been generally regarded as the scene of those mysterious forty days and the conflict with Satan's power. Let us cross that plain and obtain a nearer view of Mount Quarantania.
