This is a later edition of a map created by the Dutch cartographer Abraham Bar Jacob in 1695 and printed as part of the Amsterdam Haggadah. Abraham Bar Jacob, whose name appears on the bottom of the map, was born a Christian and converted to Judaism. This is one of the earliest maps of the Land of Israel in Hebrew and is believed to have been based on a map designed by the theologian Christian van Adrichem.
At the top of the map are the words written in Hebrew:
The journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Israel is marked with a dotted path, with Hebrew letters indicating the names of the forty-one places where they stopped along the way. The name of the stops are displayed in a box on the bottom right-hand side of the map.
The map illustrates other biblical stories and themes, such as the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah and the shipment of wood from Tzor (Tyre) for the building of the Temple. In addition, Bar Jacob depicted the story of Jonah being thrown to the whale and then spat out onto dry land. The Land of Israel is divided into the twelve territories of the twelve tribes. The map is oriented to the east and not the north as is conventional today, with Jerusalem in the centre of the map together with other biblical locations, such as Beit El, Beit Lehem, and Hebron. On the bottom left corner of the map is a verse from Exodus chapter 19 that describes God’s role in bringing the people of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land.
To illustrate the verse, the cartographer included a drawing of an eagle spreading its wings.
The well-known description of the Land of Israel as a land of milk and honey is portrayed through pictures of beehives and cows with the words “honey” and “milk” printed underneath. These images are based on the cows and beehives that were common in Bar Jacob’s home country, Holland, and not the date honey and goat’s milk which were more likely in the biblical Land of Israel. In the bottom right-hand corner of the map there is a drawing of a woman with a parasol sitting on top of a crocodile. It seems that this picture was supposed to represent Egypt where crocodiles were common and a part of Egyptian mythology. The woman with the parasol is thought to represent nobility. One of the lakes marked on the map as Mei Maron is the Hula Lake of today’s Israel.
Ancient maps are different to modern maps in a number of ways. They are not scientific and often reflect the imagination of the cartographer, who may have never visited the site in question. Similarly, they are often subjective and present a certain idea, rather than scientific facts, about the place. One example of this is the focus on many maps of the Holy Land on biblical stories. Since the convention of placing the north at the top of the map had not been commonly adopted, ancient maps often orientate (from the word orient – east) toward the East in the direction of the Holy Land and not the North. Finally, since cartographers had probably not ventured far from their homeland, the attributes of the cities in the maps often reflect those that were known to them. For example, in this map, Bar Jacob depicted houses in Israel in the architectural style of the houses of Amsterdam.
The map was originally included in the Amsterdam Haggadah and shows the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the Land of Israel. The festival of Pesach celebrates the redemption of the Israelites from Egypt and the beginning of their journey to freedom; the Promised Land, Israel. The Haggadah is a book that Jews traditionally use when recounting the events of the redemption from Egypt during the Seder ceremony.
