Phoenicia in Smiths Bible Dictionary
(land of palm trees) a tract of country, of which Tyre and
Sidon were the principal cities, to the north of Israel,
along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea bounded by that sea
on the west, and by the mountain range of Lebanon on the
east. The name was not the one by which its native
inhabitants called it, but was given to it by the Greeks,
from the Greek word for the palm tree. The native name of
Phoenicia was Kenaan (Canaan) or Kna, signifying lowland, so
named in contrast to the ad joining Aram, i.e. highland, the
Hebrew name of Syria. The length of coast to which the name
of Phoenicia was applied varied at different times.
1. What may be termed Phoenicia proper was a narrow
undulating plain, extending from the pass of Ras el-Beyad or
Abyad, the Promontorium Album of the ancients, about six
miles south of Tyre, to the Nahr el-Auly, the ancient
Bostrenus, two miles north of Sidon. The plain is only 28
miles in length. Its average breadth is about a mile; but
near Sidon the mountains retreat to a distance of two miles,
and near Tyre to a distance of five miles.
2. A longer district, which afterward became
entitled to the name of Phoenicia, extended up the coast to
a point marked by the island of Aradus, and by Antaradus
toward the north; the southern boundary remaining the same
as in Phoenicia proper. Phoenicia, thus defined is estimated
to have been about 120 miles in length; while its breadth,
between Lebanon and the sea, never exceeded 20 miles, and
was generally much less. The whole of Phoenicia proper is
well watered by various streams from the adjoining hills.
The havens of Tyre and Sidon afforded water of sufficient
depth for all the requirements of ancient navigation, and
the neighboring range of the Lebanon, in its extensive
forests, furnished what then seemed a nearly inexhaustible
supply of timber for ship-building. Language and race. --The
Phoenicians spoke a branch of the Semitic language so
closely allied to Hebrew that Phoenician and Hebrew, though
different dialects, may practically be regarded as the same
language. Concerning the original race to which the
Phoenicians belonged, nothing can be known with certainty,
because they are found already established along the
Mediterranean Sea at the earliest dawn of authentic history,
and for centuries afterward there is no record of their
origin. According to Herodotus, vii. 89, they said of
themselves in his time that they came in days of old from
the shores of the Red Sea and in this there would be nothing
in the slightest degree improbable as they spoke a language
cognate to that of the Arabians, who inhabited the east
coast of that sea. Still neither the truth nor the falsehood
of the tradition can now be proved. But there is one point
respecting their race which can be proved to be in the
highest degree probable, and which has peculiar interest as
bearing on the Jews, viz., that the Phoenicians were of the
same race as the Canaanites. Commerce, etc. --In regard to
Phoenician trade, connected with the Israelites, it must be
recollected that up to the time of David not one of the
twelve tribes seems to have possessed a single harbor on the
seacoast; it was impossible there fore that they could
become a commercial people. But from the time that David had
conquered Edom, an opening for trade was afforded to the
Israelites. Solomon continued this trade with its king,
obtained timber from its territory and employed its sailors
and workmen. 2Sa 5:11; 1Ki 5:9,17,18 The religion of the
Phoenicians, opposed to Monotheism, was a pantheistical
personification of the forces of nature and in its most
philosophical shadowing forth of the supreme powers it may
be said to have represented the male and female principles
of production. In its popular form it was especially a
worship of the sun, moon and five planets, or, as it might
have been expressed according to ancient notions, of the
seven planets --the most beautiful and perhaps the most
natural form of idolatry ever presented to the human
imagination. Their worship was a constant temptation for the
Hebrews to Polytheism and idolatry --
1. Because undoubtedly the Phoenicians, as a great
commercial people, were more generally intelligent, and as
we should...
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