A Hill Country

The 'Promised Land' is very small. From north to south - 'from Dan to Beersheba' as the Bible puts it - it is less than 150 miles, barely 230km, long. The northern end of the Dead Sea is only 50 miles/80km from the coast (though about 1300ft/400 meters below sea level). The land is, in fact, rather like a roof of a house. It rises gently from the Mediterranean to about 3,200 ft/1,000 meters above sea level, and then plunges steeply down to the great gash of the Jordan rift valley. There the earth's surface has cracked and dropped to form a trench which we can trace south all the way into East Africa. East of the Jordan and north of Galilee the mountains rise to greater heights - to nearly 6,500 ft/2,000 meters in edom on the eatern desert fringe, and over 9,800 ft/3,000 meters in Lebanon and Mt. Hermon to the north.

To surrounding nations, therefore, the people of Israel in their land seemed like hill tribes. 'The gods of Israel are mountain gods,' say King Benhadad's officials. The heart of their kingdoms lay along the mountain spine between the coast and the Jordan rift. In these mountains, they could hold off attacks from the Philistines on the coast. But they themselves never really conquered the coastlands. From time to time (especially under King David) they expanded north into Syria or east beyond the Jordan where, at different times, they took control of Moab and Edom. But the Judean hills were their first base - and their last.

A Hill Country
Geology
The Rift

Structures of the Land Climate of the Land Vegetation of the Land Resources of the Land Regions of the Land