Ebal and Gerizim
The two ancient hills confront each other, facing off, looking and gazing toward the other morning and night. They sat in the plain of the ancient land for millennia: they sit standing, gazing upon each other still. In the 21st century. They await a greater destiny. World events and happenings will come upon them in our future.
It is not the stones of the mountains, these Palestinian or Canaanite hills, that stare down the other. It is their spirits. Spirits and even demons of the past, present, and future.
Abraham, the faithful, came here from the Mesopotamian plains, from Ur and Babel of the river valleys and wadis far to the east. He came more directly from Haran in the north, in the great lands of Asia Minor, Anatolia. Making his way to the Promised Land.
The two mountains stood facing each other north and south, for millions of years, some say, scientists posit that the earth and our solar system developed as such. But then come the Hebrews, and perhaps before them the Zoroastrians, and the One God Jehovah, also known as Yahweh, created our first fathers, Father Adam and Mother Eve. Then Shem, and Methuselah, and Noah, till our Father of Nations, Abraham, husband of Hagar and Sarah, went through the land to make it his. And God's, according to tradition.
As Abraham approached the mountains heading south from Anatolia, on the plains of Esdraelon, he noted the rocks in the clefs of Ebal from afar off. The water had been good in these parts, as opposed to the hills and valleys of much of the way thus far. What would later be known as Syria and Lebanon, he had moved on because of the lack of propitiousness of their natures. Not charged enough, not sound enough. Not evincing the right will of God. Even though the verdant rolling slopes of the future Golan Heights impressed him, Abraham knew it was not the right place.
Something about craggy Ebal, and the lush Gerizim to the south behind it, as they, his small party, swooped forward, back and forth from left to right, with their camels and donkeys, rising and falling on the valley floor away from the sea to the west, made him stir within himself. But as he often would, he was not entirely sure within himself, so he would push his thoughts and feelings to his beloved Sarah, and also his firstborn Isaac. He had known Ishmael of his servant Hagar in the flesh, but he spoke to his foreordained son Isaac in his dreams. Sarah would, too.
"Does that seem like a holy, heavenly place to you?"
Sarah responded with fortitude. "Perhaps my tired feet and overworked soul are speaking to me, but those mountains seem to me a holy place. We should ask locals around here."
So they did. There was a band of sheep herders who lived in and around the twin mountains. They, these pastoralists and nomads, claimed special powers about the place. They would go between the great sea to the west (known to us as the Mediterranean), cross between the narrow pass of what would be named Ebal and Gerizim towards the fecund valley of the later known Jordan River, whose waters fed from the lush Golan Heights. They thought the path fortuitous and blessed. When they did not pass between the two rocky mounts, misfortune would befall. Especially circumventing Ebal to the north.
Hmm, thought Abraham. I must stay south of Ebal. He had learned its name. The taller mount, by a few cubits, to its close partner and smaller twin, Gerizim.
The passage between them had monuments and many graves. Holy enough.
Samaritans would someday, centuries and centuries later, build their holiest temple Hyksos there. The Greeks loved their gods there, as did the Israelites of Moses.
There and then, with Levi and Judah and Benjamin, Joseph and his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, plus Simeon and Issachar, the six southern-based tribes would counter-pose the other six of the north, symbolizing blessings versus curses. Blessed to the south, cursed to the north.
The southern kingdom would prevail for a while after Sennacherib and the Assyrians pillaged and broke loose the Northern tribes, but eventually almost all would flee.
The Samaritans, the mixed peoples, would claim Ebal and Gerizim. Lost to the peoples of Judah, and most of Israel, even till 2026.
Ishmael's or perhaps Keturah's six sons and their bloodlines would alight upon and about the city that would go from Shechem to Nablus. Nablus, another Naples, like the more famed city of Italy, a later, greater empire.
Empires become these places.
Holy or cursed.
Today it is controlled under Arab hands, measured. There are occasional eretz Israel (Zionist) settlers who look to intervene in the otherwise not too bad West Bank. What is the population? Over 150,000. I think of that as crowded, especially nudged between Ebal and Gerizim. I can imagine houses of stone crammed together, spanning the ascents of the hills, these two mounts, climbing higher and higher. How far up to the mountains go the homes? Like the ever-rising homesteads in California and the benches of Utah, or Colorado, where mansions and dream luxury houses go on into the elevations, the rises. Like the twin mounts here. How many live above, like at Mount Tabor or Carmel?
It is not walkable like Mount Carmel, where Elijah did amble two plus millennia ago. Burning down the bullocks over the imaginary Baal and his misled priests. That is more a solitary mount, where we walked it thirty years ago in my religion class. In the Holy Land. Must be more Israeli Jewish owned, I presume?
Neighborhoods in the Holy Land can and should be for tourists, but then there are places like Ramallah or some Ultra-Orthodox area like Mea Sharim near downtown Jerusalem that cater to the locals. Muslims, Jewish. Some Christian places are safer, or more universal. Mount Carmel was safe for us, many other Christian sites.
In a year when the peace process was still moving forward. Times change. 1995. 2026. What will the future bring? What does the Bible say? What do people believe? Do the prophesies fulfill themselves?
Animosity and hatred boil up. Like the last two and half years, too intensely. Down further along the coast in the Gaza Strip, where Ashdod and Ashqelon were located anciently. Folks other than Hebrews, or Israelites, who where Philistines or Phoenicians.
The past and the present, the historic and tragic of yesteryear prefigures the future. Is it always violence and hate? Is there always the good and the evil, those against God and those for them?
Ebal and Gerizim. Curses to the north, rocky, barren, empty. Blessings to the south, fecund, fruitful, blooming. Half of the twelve tribes represented, symbolized the cursed among the covenant of the twelve. Zebulon, Dan, Nephtali, the other three... All were given to Ebal, the lowly opposite of God's chosen. The taller mountain to the north, but the more forlorn.
Cursed. Do we believe that the opposite of blessings occur? If there is a God, be there curses?
Ebal and Gerizim.
The saga continues.
How many lives and destinies are lived out here, between the shadows of the mounts of the plain, swept up in Har Megiddo, where the End of Days will transpire? Who surrounds the Holy Ones of Israel?
Where are the Twelve Tribes now? We are they.
The Mountains are us, the rocks and plants and all of the spirits having lived and breathed and died there, facing one another, looking after the good and bad, is found in us now. And forever.
