summit is computed to be 9200 feet above the level of the sea, but it is exceeded in
height by six other Sumatran mountains. For the Peninsular Ophir see Ledang.
Of the celebrated place itself nothing is said in Scripture that will enable us to
determine its geographical position. It is simply said to be one with which the Jews,
with the assistance of the Tyrians, carried on a lucrative trade for about a century,
but more especially during the reign of Solomon. We are, therefore, left to judge of
its locality by the character of the people who conducted the trade with it, by the place
from which it was conducted, and by the nature of the commodities brought from it.
In the time of Solomon, about eight and twenty centuries ago, the Jews were an
inland people, partly agricultural, and partly pastoral. They were unskilled in the
arts, as we find from the necessity they were under of bringing skilled artisans from
Tyre and Sidon. They were unacquainted with iron, and the only metals known to
them were gold, silver and brass, or rather bronze, the last of these received either
from the Tyrians or Egyptians.
Neither do they seem to have possessed any maritime commerce until David
effected the conquest of Edom or Idumea, when they became possessed of a small
portion of the coast of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Eloth, now called Akaba, at the
north-east part of its head. On this gulf was situated the port of Ezion-geber,
which is expressly stated to have been “ beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea,
in the land of Edom.” Some, at least, of the ships with which the trade to Ophir
was carried on were built at this port, for it is distinctly stated that the king “ made
a navy of ships in Ezion-geber,” which, with the help of Tyrian mariners and pilots,
performed the voyage to Ophir. Solomon is even stated to have visited Ezion-geber
in person, a journey of no great difficulty, since it is not, in a straight line, above
120 geographical miles from Jerusalem.
The cause of Solomon’s engaging in the trade to Ophir was evidently his having
become possessed of a portion of the shore of the Red Sea, and his alliance with
the Tyrian king. The conquered Edomites of the coast were at least fishermen,
and most probably, as they are described as a people considerably advanced,
carried on some traffic along the coasts of the Red Sea. The Jews themselves
could have had no maritime skill, and the probability is that the Idumeans
formed the bulk of the crews of Solomon’s commercial navy. Even these, however,
would be destitute of the skill necessary to conduct a fleet on the distant voyage to
Ophir, and hence the necessity of employing the pilots and mariners of Tyre, already
familiar with the voyage. I t was not, however, pilots and mariners alone that the
Tyrian king furnished, for he also supplied ships. “ Hiram sent him by the hands
of his servants ships and servants that had knowledge of the sea, and they went with
the servants of Solomon to Ophir.”
But the Jewish navy that traded with Ophir is also called a navy of Tarshish. This
Tarshish must in all probability have been a Tyrian port or emporium on the shore
of the Red Sea,—most likely on the Gulf of Suez, and would be the port of departure
for the Tyrian fleet for Ophir, as Ezion-geber on the Gulf of Eloth, was for the
Jewish. Both fleets would appear sometimes to have joined at Tarshish before taking
their departure. Thus in Chronicles, the kings of Judah and Israel combine to
build ships for the Ophir trade at Ezion-geber, in order to proceed to Tarshish.
They were foiled in this project, however, for as the text says, “ the ships were
broken” (that is wrecked) “ so that they were not able to go to Tarshish.” The
Tarshish thus referred to must have been on the same sea with Ezion-geber, and
nothing could have been more natural than that the Jewish fleet should before
starting, take advantage of the superior skill and safe convoy of the Tyrian. To suppose
Tarshish, from its accidental resemblance in sound to have been, as some have
done, a port on the coast of the Mediterranean, would be to make the Jewish fleet of
Ezion-geber to sail over the Isthmus of Suez, since in Solomon’s time there was no
canal connecting the Red Sea with the Nile : nor even if there had been, could it be
supposed that the boats suited to a canal would be fit to navigate an open sea.
Tarshish, then, we may conjecture with considerable probability, was one of, and
perhaps the principal of the emporia or factories which the Egyptians, not themselves
a maritime people, granted to the enterprising Phoenicians on the Red Sea.
The Jewish trade with Ophir is said to have been conducted, not by Jewish
merchants, but by the king, perhaps in the rude state of society which existed at
the time, the only party competent to do so. This is at all events quite consonant to
the practice of all the small rude and despotic countries of the East, as for example,
of the Malayan princes. I t was even so as late as in the Indian trade of the
Portuguese, the monopoly of which was in the king’s hands. That the government
of Solomon was a rude and arbitrary one is sufficiently proved from the fact that the
Temple was constructed, as such edifices always are in the East, by corvée, or forced
labour, and that for want of skill in his own people, the labour was carried on under the
direction of the Tyrians and Sidonians, whose services were paid for in com and oil.
With respect to the length of the voyage from the gulfs at the head of the Red
Sea to Ophir, some writers have inferred that it must have been to a very distant
country from the following expression from the text of Scripture, “ For the king had
at sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram. Once in three years came the
navy of Tarshish, bringing gold, &c.” This would not seem to imply that the voyage
occupied three years, a length of time which the voyages of no rude people ever did
occupy. With the Tyrians, the voyage to Ophir was most probably, as in all similar
cases, an annual one, regulated by the periodical winds in the Red Sea, and the
monsoons in the Indian ocean. The expression used would seem only to imply that
the Jews, who were new to the trade, engaged in the enterprise but once in three
years, having probably not the means of carrying it on regularly. Even what they
did effect, they were enabled to accomplish, only through the friendship of the Tyrians.
It is, indeed, impossible not to suspect that the so-called friendship of Hiram for
Solomon was dictated by policy on the part of the Phoenicians, a small commercial
people with distant factories, who would stand naturally in fear of the Jews, who
had not only subdued all the nations of Palestine, but also the Idumeans, thus
becoming their immediate neighbours at home on the Mediterranean coast, and also
coming into close contact with their settlements on the Red Sea.
We'may next consider the character of the Jewish trade with Ophir, from the
nature of the commodities of which the cargoes of the ships consisted. Of the outward
investment, nothing is said in Scripture, but we may suppose it to have consisted
of Egyptian and Tyrian manufactures, since the Jews had none of their own fit for
exportation. These would consist of linen, pottery, utensils, tools, lamps, musical
instruments of bronze, and arms. Such commodities as these would have been indispensable
for the payment of the gold and other articles which were brought from Ophir,
unless we suppose the Jews to have been pirates, and the collection of a sufficient assortment
of them might have occupied the long period which elapsed between each voyage.
The imports from Ophir consisted, according to our translation, of the following
commodities, namely, gold, silver, precious stones, ivory, apes, peacocks, and almug-
trees. The quantity of gold brought is in one place called 420, and in another 450
talents. The smallest of these amounts would make, according to the usual estimate
of the Jewish talent, 573,720 ounces, at 4Í. the ounce equal to 2,294,8801. This is
an enormous and improbable sum, and most probably there is a mistake in the
transcription of the numbers, and this is the more likely when we find the quantities
differing in the two statements of it given. It is not, however, stated that the
quantity of gold brought was the result of each adventure, and it is even more
probable that it was the whole quantity brought from Ophir during the whole reign
of Solomon. He is stated to have reigned twenty-four years, and as he is said to
have inherited the trade from his father David, he may have made as many as eight
voyages during his life-time. This would reduce the quantity brought in each
adventure to the average of 71,715 ounces, or 286,8601., still a sum far too large for
a trade conducted by so rude a people as the Jews were some eight-and-twenty
centuries ago. The countries which would furnish the largest supply of gold to the
Tyrians and Jews would be the eastern coast of Africa, such as Senna and Sofala,
where it is still found; and in this early period the washings or diggings may have
been as productive as we have recently found them in California and Australia, a
supposition which would diminish our surprise at the large quantity stated to have
been brought by Solomon’s fleets.
The same parts of Africa that furnished gold would furnish both apes and ivoiy,
for the first exist there in numbers, and the elephant still abounds. They would
not, however, produce the silver which was brought from Ophir, for these countries are
not known to produce any, and if they did, it is not probable that the rude Africans
would have understood the art of reducing the ore. As to the “ precious stones ”
which were brought from Ophir, it is impossible to identify them under so general
a term with any country. With so rude a people as the Jews, such things as agates,
blood-stones, carnelians, garnets, and amethysts, would probably be considered, as
precious stones, and it is, indeed, highly improbable that they brought from Ophir, or
obtained from any quarter, real oriental gems, such as the diamond, emerald, sapphire,
and ruby.
What the almug-trees were, it is difficult to conjecture. They appear to have been