Trade

Despite the lack of good natural harbors Palestine played an important part in international trade. Some of the most important trade routes, leading to Egypt from Mesopotamia, Syria and Phoenicia, crossed Palestine which represented the only approach to Egypt from the north, except by sea. For this reason the trade routes of Palestine were always thronged with merchants from all parts of the world (Gen 37:25; I Kgs 10:15, etc.). The tolls collected from them were an important factor in the country's economy at all periods.

Among the finds on the sites that were occupied as early as the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods are objects and materials that certainly did not originate in Palestine, and must therefore have been brought from abroad.

The Phoenicians were intermediaries in the great maritime trade between western Asia and the cities on the Mediterranean coast, as well as in the trade between Syria, Egypt and the other countries along the shores of the Mediterranean.

In times of peace, merchants would make their way singly or in small groups, with a few beasts of burden. They would travel from village to village buying the local products (Prov 31:24). Larger companies of traders used camels (Gen 37:25), donkeys (Gen 42:46, etc.), mules (I Chr 12:40) and servants (II Kgs 5:23). During the Persian period armed guards accompanied the caravans (Ezra 8:22).

The chief exports from Palestine in the biblical period were grain, oil and wine. Tyre bought the products of Palestine in order to resell them in the Mediterranean ports (Ezek 27:17); oil was shipped to Egypt (Hos 12:1), along with balm, honey, spices, myrrh, nuts and almonds (Gen 43:11). Tyre bought fir trees and cedars for the masts of its ships and the oaks of the Bashan for its oars (Ezek 27:5-6), while the Israelites imported cedars and pines from the Lebanon (I Kgs 5:6, 9, etc.).

Few trade regulations are mentioned in the Bible, but certain laws were not calculated to encourage it. A self-contained economic system was the ideal, according to the Bible (Prov 31:10-27), and "the laying of usury" was prohibited (Ex 22:25, etc.). The precept of using a just stone (AV: "weight") and a just measure, was clearly laid down (Lev 19:35-36).

It was not until the time of Solomon that the Israelites began to engage in international trade on a large scale. After the return from the Babylonian Exile international trade was mostly in the hands of foreigners, including the men of Tyre, Sidon and Greece. Not much is known about the development of trade in the 4th century B.C. but the rise of the port of Alexandria and the granting of permission to Jews to settle there and in the newly founded Antioch-on-the-Orontes did much for its expansion under the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms. The conquest of Joppa by the Hasmoneans provided the Judean kingdom with access to the sea routes; and the opening of this port to Greek merchants, who took the place of the Phoenicians, turned it into an international center of commerce.

In the Roman period Judea became part of the huge Roman commercial complex, and its great prosperity in the first centuries A.D. is due to this connection. The flourishing Nabatean trade flowed through southern Palestine, its countless camel-trains bearing spices, perfumes, herbs, precious wood and gems from the Far East and southern Arabia. The long trade routes terminated at Gaza and the ports to the south of it. Other very important routes to Syria, Phoenicia and Egypt also passed through Judea, and the tolls collected in the ports and at its borders formed an important part of the country's revenue.