The famed “Physician of Harley Street” visited Israel in 1905, long before the land was commercialized. He has some fascinating observations, particularly the inn at Bethlehem. There are some inferences stated as fact, but he weaves a series of interesting threads together.
The Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem is always crowded. It is the portal by which nearly every visitor enters and leaves the city, and is the highway to Bethlehem, Hebron and Egypt. We will journey from it together to the birthplace of Christ, and seek to get a mental picture of the little town and its surroundings.
Standing at the Jaffa Gate, we see stretching in front of us a broad straight road leading down the hill to a bridge. That bridge is remarkable because it is the dividing line between Judah and Benjamin.
The whole of the city of Jerusalem is in the latter territory; and across the bridge is the barren country of Judah, in which Bethlehem lies.
The road is full of life. A great crowd is passing up and down. Many men are carrying waterskins, full or empty, for down by the bridge is a celebrated fountain which supplies the whole of this part of Jerusalem with water. Those who pass down with the empty skins attract little notice, but in returning the bloated forms of the animals—full to bursting, and dripping on the dusty way—form strange and repulsive objects.
On the left half of the road are camels coming up the hill, generally three tied together in a string and led by a small black donkey, and all laden with stone for the building of new houses in and around Jerusalem.
As we pass down we see on the left hand, towering ever higher and higher, the bulwarks of Zion, thirty or forty feet high—with towers at intervals—built of large gray stones. The wall rises higher as the road descends, showing the bare rock below on which Zion is built, the two together reaching a height, as we get down to the bridge, of sixty or seventy feet above it. Then the hill of Zion ends and the way takes a sharp turn to the east and runs straight along for half a mile to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, forming the south side of Jerusalem and of the city of Zion.
Stand now for a moment on this bridge and look around. Here, on the right hand parapet is perhaps the most remarkable fountain in the world, because it is fed by aqueducts of stone, said to be built by Solomon himself. The King’s Pools, which he constructed some seven miles south in the hills of Judea, store the water which is then brought to Jerusalem. His work was destroyed, and repaired by Babylonian and Persian kings, then later on by the Saracens and Turks, and last of all by our own Royal Engineers, who have so restored the ancient conduits, that they now supply water to Jerusalem in part along the original route. But Solomon did more than supply Jerusalem with water.
If you will turn due east, you see in front of you the dark and narrow Valley of Hinnom, with, as I have said, the lofty wall of Zion running straight along the left-hand side, till at the end it takes a sharp turn north. This narrow gorge is very remarkable. First of all, it is the boundary line between Benjamin on the left and Judah on the right. Close by the bridge, near where you stand, was the place where the horrid image that Solomon erected to the god Moloch was placed, in the arms of which infants were burnt alive. Farther on are the ceaseless smoldering fires that are never quenched day or night, year after year, where all the refuse of Jerusalem is burnt—“where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched”—fit type of Gehenna. Beyond that, you can clearly see a low brown hill across the end of the valley. That is the Mount of Offense for on it were built the palaces where Solomon lodged hundreds of his wives, to the great scandal of the men of Zion, who gazed at them from the battlements of the city.
Now they are all swept away, and nothing is left but the gray village of Siloam (Silwan); and below it you can see a square enclosure, which is the Pool of Siloam, where the blind man went and washed his eyes and returned seeing, at the bidding of Christ.
If you look along the right-hand side of the Hinnom Valley, the most interesting spot is at the farther end, near the Mount of Offense. That is a notable field which you see there, called to this day the Field of Blood, and the hill on which it lies is the Hill of Evil Counsel. There, on the Wednesday of Passion Week, while our Lord was resting quietly at Bethany for the last time before His betrayal and crucifixion, it is said that the scribes and Pharisees took counsel with Judas to put Him to death.
Proceeding southwards on the way to Bethlehem a hill rises in front of us, and on the left-hand side stands a stone castellated building, a monument to Christian charity, the English Ophthalmic Hospital, where all sufferers from diseases of the eye in the neighborhood come to be freely nursed and cured.
On the right-hand side are long lines of low almshouses, built by Sir Moses Montefiore, for the relief of the indigent Jews of Jerusalem.
We now proceed rapidly down the long slope, with the white houses and towers of Bethlehem appearing over the low hills to the left. At the bottom the road forks, the left-hand branch going to the town, the other one straight on to Hebron and Egypt. Near this fork some 3600 years ago, Rachel died. Here, just at this place by the side of the road, perhaps in a tent hastily pitched, the much-loved wife died in giving birth to Benjamin. Jacob here put up a pillar, and over that pillar was put a small building, a white sepulcher, and Rachel’s tomb is here to this day. There is little doubt that this is the very spot where she passed away.
Let us turn now to the left up the short hill and we come to the Western Gate of Bethlehem. By that gate is still the ancient well, more than likely the water source where David sent three mighty men through the hosts of the Philistines to draw water for him. But when they brought it, he thought it too precious to drink, and poured it out an offering before the Lord.
We proceed through Bethlehem, along the crooked, narrow, shady streets, leaving the Church of the Nativity on the left, and come to the brow of the hill. Standing on this eastern summit with the town behind us, we have in front a long valley, and from our feet a green slope leading down to it. You may not know how rare a color green is in Judea, for the country is nearly all gray for miles around. Here it is green, like English turf. We are reminded of the pastures in this vicinity where the shepherds watched over their flocks by night the night the Lamb of God was born.
Beyond, over the gray hills of Judea, you see, some thirty miles away, the blue mountains of Moab, over which Ruth and Naomi came to glean the ears of barley in the fields outside of town, and here Ruth met Boaz. She found favor in his eyes, and you remember how he offered her marriage, as the Jewish custom was, when her nearest of kin refused to take her. Boaz then claimed the right and married the Moabitess.
Who was Boaz? He was the great Sheik of Bethlehem, the leading man there. His grandfather, Nahshon, used to carry the Standard of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and command all the hosts of Judah in the battle. The father of Boaz was called Salmon and married Rahab, who was saved alive at the siege of Jericho. Boaz was their son, a notable man, and a man of large possessions. His house is said to be a little below the gate of the city, on our left. Wherever it actually stood, there Boaz and Ruth lived together, and there Obed, their son, was born.
Would it not also have been the house where Obed married and lived and there his son Jesse was born, and there, in turn Jesse’s son David was born?
David reigned seven years at Hebron and then came to Jerusalem. When he was driven out of the city by his cruel son Absalom, an old man in Gilead, seventy miles away, called Barzillai, showed him great kindness. So when David came back to Jerusalem he wanted to pay his debt of gratitude, and he sent for him and said, “Come and live with me at Jerusalem.” But Barzillai said he was too old, and sent his son Chimham in his stead (2 Sam. 19:37-38). He came and was given for his own possession David’s house in Bethlehem. So it became, in course of time, the house of Chimham.
It is to this house I now wish to direct your attention. This was the house of Boaz, as I have said, a little below the gate, where Boaz and Ruth lived, and their descendants, Obed, Jesse and David; and then it passed to Chimham. When he died, it appears to have become an inn or a khan. It was a usual thing for the rich man of the district to give a khan to the village. It was considered a good act, like the giving of a hospital or a park in the present day. And this khan or inn of Bethlehem was originally the house of Chimham, and after his death it was called the Habitation or Inn of Chimham (Jer. 41:17).
Then followed the checkered history of the kings of Judah and Israel, and in later years, when Nebuchadnezzar had laid Jerusalem waste, there was just a remnant of poor people left tilling the ground under a man called Gedaliah. The chief of the people was called Johanan, and among them were two prophets; one was Jeremiah and the other was Baruch. A man called Ishmael rose up and took Jeremiah captive. Johanan rescued him with some difficulty, and then fled with some hundreds, if not thousands, of people to Egypt, leaving their afflicted country altogether. Johanan, taking Jeremiah and Baruch with him, fled down by the way of Bethlehem, where they halted at the Inn of Chimham, that being the place where they could get camels and everything necessary for the journey to Egypt.
However, like many of us, after they had made up their minds what to do, they thought it would be no harm to seek God’s will in the matter, and so they asked Jeremiah if he would pray, and inquire if they should go to Egypt or not. The sequel showed, however, that they were determined to act in defiance of God’s will.
Jeremiah took ten days, and at the end of that time he told them that they were not to go to Egypt, but were to return to the land whence they came. This they utterly refused to do, rejecting the counsel of God, whereupon Jeremiah said they should not see the land any more. And they did not. They went on down into Egypt, taking Jeremiah and Baruch with them, and none of them ever saw the hills of Judah again.
And now a silence falls over the Khan of Chimham the Inn of Bethlehem. We hear no more about it until 1904 years ago [at time of writing, ed.] when Jesus was born of Mary in the stable of that very inn. Jesus, great David’s greater Son, was born in David’s house, the house of Boaz, the house of Ruth. There can be little doubt of this fact to those who have not only studied the Bible generally, but pondered carefully the small allusions to the situation of the house of Boaz, and compared it with the site of the Church of the Nativity as it stands today. They agree perfectly, and it is almost certain that when you look down at the floor of the rock stable, you stand by the spot where the Saviour entered the world.