- ows; he presented her to their astonished eyes, alive. Their overwhelming
joy and wonder, we are left to imagine. The story, when made known through the city, brought many to acknowledge the truth of that religion whose minister could work such wonders; and many believed in Christ. The field of labor which now opened to Peter in this place, seemed so wide that he did not continue his journey any further at that time, but took up his abode, for several days, in Joppa, lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, whose house stood by the sea, near the water.
Joppa, now called Jaffa.—This was from very early times a place of great importance,
from the circumstance of its being the nearest seaport to Jerusalem. It is mentioned
in reference to this particular of its situation, in 2 Chron. ii. 17, where it is
specified (in Hebrew (
Hebrew characters) Japho) as the port to which the cedar timber from Lebanon
should be floated down in rafts, to be conveyed to Jerusalem for building the temple.
It stood within the territories of the tribe of Dan, according to Josh. xix. 46, and
lies about E. N. E. from Jerusalem. Strabo, (xvi.) in describing it, refers to it as
the scene of the ancient Grecian fable of Andromeda rescued from the sea-monster
by Perseus. He describes its site as "quite elevated,—so much so, indeed, that it
was a common saying that Jerusalem might be seen from the place; the inhabitants
of which city use it as their seaport, in all their maritime intercourse." Josephus
mentions that it was added to the dominions of Herod the Great by Augustus. Its
present appearance is thus described by travelers.
"It is situated in lat. 32 deg. 2 min. N., and long. 34 deg. 53 min. E., and is forty miles W. of Jerusalem. Its situation, as the nearest port to the Holy City, has been the chief cause of its importance. As a station for vessels, according io Dr. Clarke, its harbor is one of the worst in the Mediterranean. Ships generally anchor about a mile from the town, to avoid the shoals and rocks of the place. The badness of the harbor is mentioned, indeed, by Josephus. (Josephus, Antiq. book xv. chap. 9.) *
- * * * * The road is protected by a castle built on a rock, and there
are some storehouses and magazines on the sea-side. The coast is low, but little elevated above the level of the sea; but the town occupies an eminence, in the form of a sugar-loaf, with a citadel on the summit. The bottom of the hill is surrounded with a wall twelve or fourteen feet high, and two or three feet thick. * * * * There are no antiquities in Jaffa: the place would seem to be too old to have any—to have outlived all that once rendered it interesting. The inhabitants are estimated at between four and five thousand souls, of whom the greater part are Turks and Arabs; the Christians are stated to be about six hundred, consisting of Roman Catholics, Greeks, Maronites, and Armenians." [Mod. Trav. Palest. pp. 41, 42.]
Dorcas.—This is the Greek translation of the old Hebrew (Hebrew characters) (Tsebi,) in the Aramaic
dialect of that age, changed into (Hebrew characters) (Tabitha,) in English, "gazelle," a beautiful
animal of the antelope kind, often mentioned in descriptions of the deserts of
south-western Asia, in which it roams; and not unfrequently the subject of poetical
allusion. The species to which it is commonly supposed to belong, is the Antilopa Dorcas of Prof. Pallas, who named it on the supposition that it was identical with this
animal, called by the Greeks, [Greek: Dorkas], (Dorkas,) from [Greek: Derko], (Derko,) "to look," from
the peculiar brightness of "its soft black eye."
THE CALL TO THE HEATHEN.
The apostles had now, with great zeal and efficiency, preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to the worshipers of the true God, beginning at Jerusalem, and spreading the triumphs of his name to the bounds of the land of Israel. But in all their devotion to their Master's work, they had never had a thought of breaking over the bounds of the faith of their fathers, or of making their
