Joppa

beauty; comeliness

called also Japho in the Old Testament, which is still preserved in its modern name of Jaffa or Yafah, a sea port of Palestine, situated on an eminence in a sandy soil, about seventy miles north-west of Jerusalem. Joppa was anciently the port to Jerusalem. Here all the materials sent from Tyre for the building of Solomon’s temple were brought and landed: it was, indeed, the only port in Judea, though rocky and dangerous. It possesses still, in times of peace, a considerable commerce with the places in its vicinity; and is well inhabited, chiefly by Arabs. This was the place of landing of the western pilgrims; and here the promised pardons commenced. Here St. Peter raised Dorcas from the dead, and resided many days in the house of one Simon, a tanner, Acts ix, 36–43; and it was from this place that the Prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish.