Footnote

a Denis Baly in The Geography of the Bible says: “The nature of the vegetation pattern must have undergone very great changes since Biblical times.” The cause? “Man had need of wood both for fuel and for building and therefore . . . he started to cut down the trees and thus to expose the land to the onslaughts of the weather. The result of this interference in the environment was that the climate . . . was gradually turned into the most important factor in its destruction.”