The name Khamasa seems a natural corruption of Khammath, "a hot bath,â whence Emmaus is derived. The valley, with its abundant springs and gardens shady with dark orange foliage, seems an appropriate scene for the meeting of the unrecognised Master with His sad disciples; and one of the ancient Roman highways from Jerusalem passes close to the ruin. Here also a delightful retreat would have been found for the colony of Roman pensioners settled at Emmaus.
The reading of the Sinaitic MS. (160 stadia), mentioned in the first chapter of this volume, is abandoned, it may be noted, by most scholars as not agreeing with the words of Josephus, and as making the distance from Jerusalem to Emmaus too great to have been twice traversed by the disciples within the time specified in the Gospel.
Three places called Etam are noticed in the Old Testament. One a town of the south country (1 Chron. iv. 32), probably the place which we discovered in 1874, called 'Aitûn; the second, a city fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chron. xi. 6), near Bethlehem and Tekoa, and which has probably left its name in the spring called 'Ain 'Atân, near the so-called Solomon's Pools. The third Etam does not seem to have been a town at all, but "a strong rock,â as Josephus calls it, in the territory of Judah, and is to be sought in that part of the country to which most of Samson's exploits are confined. (Judg. xv. 8.)
About two miles west of Beit 'Atâb, a valley, running north and south, separates the high rugged mountains of the 'Arkûb from the low rolling hills of the Shephelah district, beyond which is the Philistine plain. This valley joins the great gorge which bounded Judah on the north, and forms a broad vale, half a mile across, filled with luxuriant corn, with a pebbly torrent-bed in the middle, and low white hills on either side. The vale is called Wâdy S[)u]râr (a Hebrew word, meaning "pebblesâ), and is the ancient Valley of Sorek. The ruins of Bethshemesh lie on a knoll surrounded by olive-groves, near the junction of the two valleys above mentioned. On the south is Timnah, where Samson slew the lion; and on the north are the little mud villages, S[)u]r'a and Eshû'a--the ancient Zoreah and Eshtaol--the hero's home. The scene, looking up the great corn valley to the high and rugged hills above, is extremely picturesque, and is that which was spread before the eyes of the five lords of the Philistines, as they followed the lowing oxen, which bore the ark on the "straight wayâ from Ekron to Bethshemesh.