aded from the barren
waterless south.[8] David, operating from Hebron, must have approached
Jerusalem from the south, but he was already in possession of the Judaean
plateau. The original attempt of the Israelites to enter the country
from the south was checked, and they subsequently crossed the Jordan and
entered Judaea through Jericho from the east. The Philistines must have
come up by the passes from the west. Sennacherib did not approach
Jerusalem himself, but it was whilst warring against Egypt at Lachish
(Tel el Hesi on the Maritime Plain) that he sent his arrogant message to
Jerusalem; and it was on the Plain that his victorious army, infected by
the plague from Egypt, melted away as by a miracle. Egypt was his
objective, not Judaea. Nebuchadnezzar may have invaded Judaea from the
north, but it is more probable that he also came up from the west, after
first making himself master of the Maritime Plain. Pompey was returning
from his expedition in Arabia when he invaded, so he entered from the
east, ascending the Judaean plateau by way of Jericho and Bethel. Herod
invaded from the north.

In the Christian era, Cestius Gallus made his disastrous expedition by
the Valley of Ajalon, Beth-horon and Gibeon. Titus, after the
surrounding country had been subjugated, moved his army up to Jerusalem
by Gophna (Jufna) and Bethel, and so through Bireh, from the north-west
and north. The Moslems, in 637, first captured Damascus; subsequently
they approached Jerusalem across the Jordan. The First Crusaders came
through Asia Minor and won a decisive victory at Antioch; thence they
came southward along the coast, through Ramleh, and up the Valley of
Ajalon, their advance through the mountains being unopposed. Saladin, by
the decisive battle of Hattin, near Tiberias, made himself master of the
surrounding country before closing in upon Jerusalem, which he
eventually did from Hebron (south), from Askalon (west), and from the
north. In the Third Crusade, Richard and his Crusaders came oversea to
Acre; after marching to Ramleh, they tried first to reach the Holy City
up the Valley of Ajalon, and afterwards by the Vale of Elah, the Wady es
Sunt, further to the south, but both attempts failed.

Many of the invading armies that have swept through Palestine have
confined themselves to the great inter-continental road along the
Maritime Plain, and have passed by Jerusalem, secure upon its plateau.
We have seen that this was so with Sennac