of the cities of refuge. David passed much of his life here, and, after
Saul's death, Hebron was the seat of David's rule over Judea. Abner was
slain here by Joab, and was buried here--they still show Abner's tomb in
the garden of a large house within the city. By the pool at Hebron were
slain the murderers of Ishbosheth, and here Absalom assumed the throne.
After his time we hear less of Hebron. Jerusalem overshadowed it in
importance, yet we have one or two mentions. Rehoboam strengthened the
town, and from a stray reference in Nehemiah, we gather that the place long
continued to be called by its older name of Kiriath Arba. For a long period
after the return from the Exile Hebron belonged to the Idumeans. It was the
scene of warfare in the Maccabean period, and also during the rebellion
against Rome. In the market-place at Hebron, Hadrian sold numbers of Jewish
slaves after the fall of Bar-Cochba, in 135 C.E. In the twelfth century
Hebron was in the hands of the Christian Crusaders. The fief of Hebron, or,
as it was called, of Saint Abraham, extended southwards to Beer-sheba. A
bishopric was founded there in 1169, but was abandoned twenty years later.

We hear of many pilgrims in the Middle Ages. The Christians used to eat
some of the red earth of Hebron, the earth from which Adam was made. On
Sunday the seventeenth of October, 1165, Maimonides was in Hebron, passing
the city on his way from Jerusalem to Cairo. Obadiah of Bertinoro, in 1488,
took Hebron on the reverse route. He went from Egypt across the desert to
Gaza, and, though he travelled all day, did not reach Hebron from Gaza till
the second morning. If the text is correct, David Reubeni was four days in
traversing the same road, a distance of about thirty-three miles. To revert
to an earlier time, Nachmanides very probably visited Hebron. Indeed, his
grave is shown to the visitor. But this report is inaccurate. He wrote to
his son, in 1267, from Jerusalem, "Now I intend to go to Hebron, to the
sepulchre of our ancestors, to prostrate myself, and there to dig my
grave." But he must have altered his mind in the last-named particular, for