=Condition of the Jews in Palestine.= The third centre of the Jewish race was Judah itself. Even though Jerusalem was destroyed and its population scattered, the majority of the shepherds and peasants of Judah never left their homes. The captives who were deported by the Babylonians appear to have been taken almost entirely from the capital city. Those who remained in Palestine were probably placed under the rule of the governor of the so-called "Province beyond the River." The title evidently originated in Babylon, for it was the designation of the territory which lay west of the Euphrates and included Syria as well as Palestine. Without organization and the protection of a native ruler the fortunes of the Jewish peasants must have been indeed pitiable. The book of Lamentations contains references to the pitiless persecutions and the frequent forays to which they were subject. Whenever the local government was weakened, Judah was the object of attack from every quarter. On the north were the Samaritans, who could never completely forget their hereditary rivalry with the southern tribes. At this time the Samaritan territory apparently extended southward so as to include the cities of Gibeon and Mizpah. On the east the Ammonites had at last succeeded in pushing their boundaries westward to the Jordan, and in occupying the fruitful hills and valleys of southern Gilead. East of the Dead Sea the Moabite territory evidently extended northward to that recently occupied by the Ammonites. In southern Judah the Edomites, pushed northward by the advance of a strong Arab race, known as the Nabateans, had seized not only the South Country but the old capital, Hebron, and the territory to the east and west. On the southwest they occupied the important city of Mareshah and the adjacent Philistine lowlands.^{(108)} [Illustration: THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN PALESTINE DURING THE PERSIAN AND GREEK PERIODS. M-N CO. ] =Extent of the Jewish Territory.= The Jews were therefore almost entirely confined to the Judean highlands. Their outposts on the southwest were Keilah and Bethzur, on the west Zanoah, which guarded the entrance to the Valley of Sorek, and Netophah, the modern Beit Nettif, which guarded the entrance to the Valley of Elah. The northern boundary ran within five or six miles of Jerusalem. To the northeast the Jews appear to have held the city of Jericho and the neighboring Plain of the Jordan. Thus the cultivated Jewish territory was little more than twenty-five miles in length and breadth and included the least desirable land of all Palestine.