Joshua 19:26

Ver. 26. Alammelech,—Amad,—Misheal, &c.— These are cities unknown, but situate near mount Carmel, famous for the miracles of Elijah, and very different from that which went by the same name in the tribe of Judah, 2 Kings 18; Joshua 15:55. The Carmel of Asher was near the sea; and, according to Josephus, at one hundred and twenty furlongs from Ptolemais on the south. Hist. Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 9. The ancients boasted of it on account of its height, and called it the holy mountain of Jupiter. There was said to be a temple and a god of the same name with the mountain; and Jamblichus mentions, that Pythagoras often went thither to study. Several ages since, Carmel was variously honoured by the Christians, on account of the cave, where, as it is thought, Elijah remained some time before he was carried up to heaven. Hence sprung the order of the Carmelites, founded in the wilderness of Syria, in 1180, by Almerick, Bishop of Antioch. Their old convent is destroyed; that which they now inhabit is lower down, and can scarcely maintain three monks. Efforts have been made to re-establish it on the top of the mountain, but in vain, an Emir of the Arabs having made it his residence.