They shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness: for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.
They shall call the people unto the mountain, х `amiym (H5971)] - the tribes of Israel. "The mountain" was probaly Tabor, which was on the border of Zebulun and Issachar (Joshua 19:22). There is no good foundation for the fancy of Herder, eagerly adopted by Stanley ('Sinai and Palestine,' p. 343; 'Lectures on the Jewish Church,' p. 266), that Tabor was a common sanctuary for the northern tribes. The latter adds, that 'according to the Midrash Galkaton, Deuteronomy 33:19, Tabor is the mountain on which the temple ought of right to have been built ... had it not been for the express revelation which ordered the sanctuary to be built on mount Moriah' (quoted from Schwarze, p. 71).
On that mountain Deborah and Barak did "call the people" on the eve of the great encounter with Sisera; and there, probably, on their return from the victorious campaign, the noble thanksgiving ode (Judges 5:1-31) was sung. It might be, as is alleged, that, during the abnormal period of the Judges, when there was no national religious unity established in Israel, "the people" in the northern parts of the land congregated on the level verdant summit of "the mountain" to hold their festive assemblies. But the sacred history does not furnish any data to warrant such a conclusion, which rests on no better basis than conjecture about the traditional sacredness of Tabor as a place of religious observance (cf. Psalms 89:12 with Hosea 5:1).
This blessing, however, was fully realized in the last age of Jewish history, when "the people" were called-not, indeed, to Tabor-which is erroneously assumed to be the scene of the Transfiguration-but to many of the mountains in that northern corner, to listen to the ministry of the great Teacher, Christ.
For they shall suck of the abundance of the seas - namely the Mediterranean and the sea of Galilee (the lake of Gennesareth). Both tribes should traffic with the Phoenicians in pearl and coral ambergris, especially in murex, the shellfish that yielded the famous Tyrian dye.
And of treasures hid in the sand - grains of gold and silver, and particularly glass, which was manufactured from the sand of the river Belus, in their immediate neighbourhood. Jonathan, in his Targum, specifies mirrors, and such utensils as might be made from the sand. 'Two miles from Ptolemais (Acre) a very little stream runs by, called Belus, where, by the tomb of Memnon, is a wondrous place of 100 cubits. It is circular and hollow, and yields the sand for glass; after it has been emptied, many ship-loads having been taken, it is filled up again' (Josephus, 'Jewish Wars,' b. 2:, ch. 10:, sec. 2). Pliny says ('Natural History, 36:, 26), 'a shore of not above half a mile: it has sufficed for yielding glass during many centuries.'