On the following morning he took his departure, in company with the Governor of Samaria, whom Hyrcanus had just appointed, and some Galilean Jews, who preferred returning into their own country by the nearer way. Iddo accompanied his friend as far as to the gate of Ephraim, not without a secret dissatisfaction at the ill-nature of his brother. The travellers were mounted, and attended by such a train as became the rank of the principal person in the party. They entered the King’s valley, and directed their course between Mizpa and Nob towards Geba, which lay not far from Rama, the city where Samuel judged,[98] called in latter times Arimathea. The road was stony; the conversation of the party turned wholly on worldly topics. This Geba is also called Geba of Benjamin, to distinguish it from another of the same name: it was celebrated for David’s victory over the Philistines.[99] It lay on a rising ground, six sabbath-days’ journies from Jerusalem, and was one of the cities of the priests.[100] As they had been late in quitting Jerusalem, they halted here for their rest at noon, and as most of the party were disposed to consult their own ease, they remained till late in the afternoon. The road to Michmash was more steep and rocky than that which they had travelled. Here they had to traverse a defile, between two abrupt and rugged rocks, in the mountains of Ephraim, forming a pass which had been rendered celebrated by the exploits of Jonathan in Saul’s first expedition against the Philistines,[101] and by the residence of the Maccabee prince Jonathan.[102] They halted for the night at Bethel, a place of which the name often occurs in the sacred writings. This city was sixteen sabbath-days’ journies from Jerusalem, and Helon called to mind that from the mulberry-trees in its neighbourhood it had been named Luz, when Abraham dwelt there; that Jacob here saw the vision of the ladder on which the angels ascended and descended, and that rising upon the following morning he built an altar to Jehovah, and called the name of the place Bethel.[103] The ark of the covenant had long stood here; and it was here too, alas, that Jeroboam had set up the worship of the golden calves which he had learnt in Egypt, causing Israel to sin.[104] The prophets so much abhorred its idolatries that they changed its name into Bethaven, _place of unworthiness_; and to go to Bethel, came to signify the same thing as to apostatize from Jehovah to idolatry.[105] ----- Footnote 98: 1 Sam. vii. 17. Footnote 99: 2 Sam. v. 25. Footnote 100: 1 Chron. vi. 60. Footnote 101: 1 Sam. xiv. 4. Footnote 102: 1 Mac. ix. 73. Footnote 103: Gen. xxviii. 19. Footnote 104: 1 Kings xii. 29. Footnote 105: Hos. x. 5; Amos iv. 4. -----