native population, among which, in spite of the frequent massacres of Syrians and Jews, there will have been many Jews. Perhaps, moreover, the protection of the new Jemanic population of Hauran again attracted Jewish settlers thither: Nawâ[1] at least is a place well known in the Talmud and Midrash, which is mentioned, as a city inhabited by the Jews among those who are not Jews, and as the birth-place of several eminent teachers.[2]
Moreover, in Syria the veneration of a spot consecrated by religious tradition is independent of its being at the time inhabited or desolate. The supposed tombs of Aaron near Petra, of Hud near Gerash, of Jethro (Su'êb) in the valley of Nimrîn, of Ezekiel in Melîhat Hiskîn, of Elisha on the el-Jesha’ mountains, and many other mezâre (tombs of the holy, to which pilgrims resort), are frequently one or more days' journey distant from inhabited places, and yet they are carefully tended. They are preserved from decay and neglect by vows, by the spring processions, and especially by the piety of the Beduins, who frequently deposit articles of value near the mezâre, as property entrusted to the care of the saint. The Makâm of Job may also have been such a consecrated spot many centuries before the erection of the Monastery, and perhaps not merely to the Jews, but also to the Aramaean and Arab population. The superstitious veneration of such places is not confined among the Semites to a particular religious sect, but is the common heritage of the whole race; and the tradition
- ↑ If Nawâ is not also of Jewish origin, its name is nevertheless the old Semitic נוה, “a dwelling” (Job 5:3, Job 5:24; Job 8:6; Job 18:15), and not, as Jâkût supposes, the collective form of nawât, “the kernel of a date.”
- ↑ No less than three renowned teachers from Nawâ appear in the Talmud and Midrash: ר שׁילא דנוה, Schila of Nawa (jer. Sabbath cap. ii., Wajikra rabba cap. xxxiv., Midrasch Ruth on ii. 19a), ר פלטיא דנוה (Midr. Koheleth on i. 4b) and ר שׁאול דנוה (ib. on xii. 9a). נוה is mentioned as an enemy of the neighbouring town of חלמיש in Wajikra rabba c. xxiii., Midr. Echa on i. 17a, and Midr. Schir on ii. 1. - Del.
