Cedars Of
Lebanon
Palestine, as a territory, is destitute of forests
suitable for building material. When, therefore, King David projected
a grand edifice which should be the crowning glory of the reign of his
son Solomon, and an evidence of the national devotion to God, he made
application to Hiram, the Phoenician monarch, whose possessions
included the powerful mountain ranges of Lebanon, for a supply of the
cedars which grew there in unparalleled abundance. The Tyrian king,
between whom and King David there existed a more than royal
friendship, readily acceded to his request; and thus the work of
preparation for building was expedited. So large was the supply of
this material furnished to King Solomon, that, after the completion of
the edifice upon Mount Moriah, which occupied seven years and upward,
King Solomon erected, upon the contiguous hill westward, a palace for
his own use, in which, so abundantly did the cedar enter, that it was
entitled ‘the House of Lebanon.’
On Lebanon’s majestic brow
The grand and lofty cedars grew
That, shipped in floats to Joppa’s port
Up to Jerusalem were brought.
The principal groves of cedar were found about 150
miles north-west of Jerusalem, and not far from the seacoast on which
the cities of Sidon, Sarepta, and Tyre stood. This suggests the mode
of transhipment, which is described in the Scriptures: The trunks of
trees were rudely shaped, made into floats or rafts, and brought down
the coast by Phoenician mariners, the most skilful sailors of the
age, about 100 miles to the port of Joppa, the only seaport opposite
Jerusalem, from which it was distant but 35 miles. Here they were
adapted, by the tools of the workmen, to the exact places they were to
occupy in the Temple, and then carried by land to the Sacred Hill.
Being incorruptible to atmospheric influences, the
cedar beams and planks thus used might have remained to this day, the
ornaments of Moriah and Sion, and the tokens of the brotherly
covenants that connected the monarchs of Israel and Phoenicia, but for
the destructive influences of invasion. The Temple, having stood for
416 years, was burned by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, who was the
instrument in God’s hand to chastise a rebellious and idolatrous
people.
The number of cedars remaining upon Lebanon is very
small — less, it is said than 100; but these are grand specimens of
the Creator’s power, towering in sublimity in the valleys, where they
are hidden, and suggesting what must have been the ancient glory of
Lebanon, covered with a growth of such.
JOPPA The peculiarly hilly, and even precipitous,
character of Joppa is preserved in the traditions of the Degree of
MARK MASTER, and a benevolent moral deduced, in accordance with the
entire instructions of the grade.
True charity, a plant divinely nursed,
Fed by the hope from which it rose at first,
Thrives against hope, and in the rudest scene;
Storms but enliven its unfading green,
Exuberant is the shadow it supplies,
Its fruit on earth, its growth above the skies.
Thus no opportunity is lost, either in covenants,
emblems, traditions, or dramatic exercises, to impress upon the
candidate’s mind the Divine lesson that, great as faith and hope are
esteemed in their effects upon the human heart, “The greatest of these
is charity.”
John Sherer
Royal Arch Mason Magazine Spring 1998
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