Post by Lee on May 6, 2014 3:05:20 GMT
Sharon, the Plain of, the area where the coastal plain widens south of the slopes of Mt. Carmel and the crocodile marshes (the modern Nahr Zerqa), extending about thirty miles south to the Yarkon River north of Joppa. It varies from about eight to twelve miles in width. The streams from the well-watered hills to the east must avoid a central mass of Mousterian Red Sand. They move sluggishly south and north of the mass, spreading into broad areas of swamps and flooding in wet seasons.
In Israelite times the dunes supported an impenetrable oak forest (compared to the thick forests of Lebanon and Carmel in Isa. 35:2) rather than the citrus groves seen today. Pastureland would have been on the fringe of the forest (1 Chron. 27:29). The rose of Sharon is a kind of crocus growing as a ‘lily among brambles’ (Song of Sol. 2:1-2). ‘Sharon is like a desert’ (Isa. 33:9) and ‘Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks’ as the barren slopes above Jericho will become a place for cattle to feed (Isa. 65:10). Thus the biblical picture of Sharon is a forbidding jungle of oaks and swampy marshes rather than a fertile or productive plain.
Harper’s Bible dictionary (1st ed.) (933). San Francisco: Harper & Row.
In Israelite times the dunes supported an impenetrable oak forest (compared to the thick forests of Lebanon and Carmel in Isa. 35:2) rather than the citrus groves seen today. Pastureland would have been on the fringe of the forest (1 Chron. 27:29). The rose of Sharon is a kind of crocus growing as a ‘lily among brambles’ (Song of Sol. 2:1-2). ‘Sharon is like a desert’ (Isa. 33:9) and ‘Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks’ as the barren slopes above Jericho will become a place for cattle to feed (Isa. 65:10). Thus the biblical picture of Sharon is a forbidding jungle of oaks and swampy marshes rather than a fertile or productive plain.
Harper’s Bible dictionary (1st ed.) (933). San Francisco: Harper & Row.
