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From the plain of Esdraelon southward to Hebron, and nearly parallel to the Mediterranean coast line, there extends a range of mountainous table land, in some points reaching an elevation of three thousand feet, and varying in breadth from twenty to twenty-five miles. Toward the south of the range, like a diadem on the head of the mountains, is the city of Jerusalem. East of the city, just across the deep and narrow valley of Jehosaphat, which forms the bed of the storm brook Kedron, rises the Mount of Olives. It is the most pleasant of all the mountains that are round about Jerusalem; in pilgrim language "the Mount of Blessing;" and travellers are frequently surprised by the beauty which still haunts it. It consists of a ridge a full mile long, curving gently eastward in its northern part, and rising into three rounded summits, of which the central and highest is more than twenty-six hundred feet above the level of the Mediterranean, and more than a hundred above the highest part of the neighbouring city. In a well-wooded and terraced ravine, high up on the eastern slope of the mount, screened from the summit by an intervening ridge, nestled the sweet village of Bethany. It is reached from Jerusalem (from which it is distant two short miles) by a rough bridle path, winding over bare rock and loose stones. Its name, "the place of dates," seems to hint that it stood originally in the midst of palm trees. These trees, emblems of strength and victory, once so numerous that, in the coins of the Roman conquerors, "Judea Capta" appears as a woman weeping under a palm, have now disappeared from this neighbourhood as from Palestine generally. The modern hamlet (El-'Azariyeh, or the village of Lazarus, the old name not being locally known) is inhabited by twenty or thirty thriftless Arab families. Into the walls of many of the houses large hewn stones are built, some of them beveled, which have evidently belonged to more ancient edifices. Though itself squalid and poverty-stricken, the village is very beautifully situated, looking out from a cloud of fruit trees, chiefly fig, almond, olive, and pomegranate, and with abundant pasturage around. It is sheltered from the cold north and west, and produces the earliest ripe fruit in the district, On the whole, it may claim to be regarded as one of the sweetest spots in Palestine, though greatly changed in the course of long ages of misrule from what it must have been when the land nourished a free and noble people; and to one who loves quiet beauty and peacefulness combined with a certain mystery, it commands one of the most striking landscapes in the southern part of the country. The house of Martha, that of Simon the leper, and the tomb of Lazarus, are still pointed out to visitors. The last is a deep vault, hewn out of the solid rock, in the very edge of the village. Dr. Robinson (followed by many) rejects the tradition which names this as the tomb; while others, relying on the notices in the Jerusalem Itinerary ( A.D. 333), and by Eusebius and , are disposed to accept it, affirming that the vault has every characteristic of an ancient Jewish tomb both in form and construction, and accounting for its being so close upon the present village by the tendency of Jewish towns to advance, in the course of ages, toward spots reputed sacred. Most beautiful is the way in which Bethany is here named. In celestial geography, which counts places according to the saints who inhabit and beautify them, it was known to Jesus, it is known forever as the town of Martha and Mary and Lazarus. "This man was born there."

(J. Culross, D. D.)

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KJV: Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.

WEB: Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister, Martha.