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Nothing living can exist in this sea. “The fish carried down by the Jordan at once die, nor can even mussels or corals live in it; but it is a fable that no bird can fly over it, or that there are no living creatures on its banks. Dr. Tristram found on the shores three kinds of kingfishers, gulls, ducks, and grebes, which he says live on the fish which enter the sea in shoals, and presently die. He collected one hundred and eighteen species of birds, some new to science, on the shores, or swimming or flying over the waters. The cane-brakes which fringe it at some parts are the homes of about forty species of mammalia, several of them animals unknown in England; and innumerable tropical or semi-tropical plants perfume the atmosphere wherever fresh water can reach. The climate is perfect and most delicious, and indeed there is perhaps no place in the world where a sanatorium could be established with so much prospect of benefit as at Ain Jidi (Engedi).”, Geikie’s Hours, etc.
•DEARTH a scarcity of provisions (1 Kings 17). There were frequent dearths in Palestine. In the days of Abram there was a “famine in the land” (Genesis 12:10), so also in the days of Jacob (47:4, 13). We read also of dearths in the time of the judges (Ruth 1:1), and of the kings (2 Samuel 21:1; 1 Kings 18:2; 2 Kings 4:38; 8:1).
In New Testament times there was an extensive famine in Palestine (Acts 11:28) in the fourth year of the reign of the emperor Claudius (A.D. 44 and 45).
•DEATH may be simply defined as the termination of life. It is represented under a variety of aspects in Scripture: (1.) “The dust shall return to the earth as it was” (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
(2.) “Thou takest away their breath, they die” (Psalm 104:29).
(3.) It is the dissolution of “our earthly house of this tabernacle” (2 Corinthians 5:1); the “putting off this tabernacle” (2 Peter 1:13, 14).
(4.) Being “unclothed” (2 Corinthians 5:3, 4).
(5.) “Falling on sleep” (Psalm 76:5; Jeremiah 51:39; Acts 13:36; 2 Peter
3:9.
(6.) “I go whence I shall not return” (Job 10:21); “Make me to know mine end” (Psalm 39:4); “to depart” (Phil. 1:23).
The grave is represented as “the gates of death” (Job 38:17; Psalm 9:13; 107:18). The gloomy silence of the grave is spoken of under the figure of the “shadow of death” (Jeremiah 2:6).