heathen colony was then sent in to take the places of the exiled Israelites; these colonists suffered from the devastations of wild beasts, and acting on the common assumption of that time that their own gods were not competent to take care of them in a strange land, sent for and received priests of Israel to teach them the manner of the God of Palestine. The result of this instruction was a mixed religion, partly Jewish, partly heathen (2 Kings 17:24-41). In the O. T., the phrase “the cities of Samaria,” is equivalent to the “kingdom of Israel;” it thus included all of Palestine north of Judea. That portion of Israel east of the Jordan which originally belonged to it was subsequently taken away the kings of Assyria (1 Chron. 5:26), Galilee shared the same fate (2 Kings 15:29), and Samaria was reduced to the dimensions which it possessed in the time of Christ. The character and conduct of the Samaritans increased the antagonism between them and the Jews. They were refused permission to participate in the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem, at the time of the return of Judah from captivity, and became open, and, for a time, successful opponents of the rebuilding (Ezra, chaps. 4 and 5; Neh., chaps. 4 and 6). Finally, an exiled priest from Jerusalem obtained permission from the Persian king of his day to build a rival temple at Gerizim, and Samaria became the rival of Jerusalem, and the rallying-point of its foes and its outlaws (Josephus’ Antiq. 11:8, 6). To a rival temple and religion, they added a Samaritan Pentateuch, for which they claimed a greater antiquity and authority than for any copy of the O. T. possessed by the Jews. The bitter national and religious antipathy between Jew and Samaritan, consequent upon this history, is illustrated in several passages in the N. T. (ver. 9, note; 8:48; Luke 9:52-56; 10:30-37; 17:16). If anything could justify such an antipathy this would be justified, since the Samaritans were renegades both to their religion and to their nation; and Christ’s course here and elsewhere implies a condemnation of all rancor and bitterness, founded on race, national, or religious differences. Of the Samaritans, one hundred and fifty still worshipping in a little synagogue at the foot of Gerizim are all that are left, “the oldest and the smallest sect in the world.” 5 Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave[126] to his son Joseph. [126] Gen. 33:19; 48:22; Josh. 24:32.