Between Lydda and the sea, a spacious valley runs out, here and there widely spreading itself, and sprinkled with villages. The holy page of the New Testament [Acts 9:35] calls it Saron: and that of the Old calls the whole, perhaps, or some part of it, 'the plain of Ono,' Nehemiah 6:2, 11:35; 1 Chronicles 8:12...

The wine of Sharon is of great fame, with which they mixed two parts water: and remarkable is that they say concerning the houses of Sharon. R. Lazar saith, "He that builds a brick house in Sharon, let him not return back": which was allowed to others, Deuteronomy 20:5, -- namely, that they should return back from the war, if they had built a new house, and it were not yet dedicated. "But the men of Sharon withdrew not themselves back" (they are the words of the Jerusalem Gemara), "because they repaired their houses within seven years: and the chief priest also prayed for them on the day of expiation, that their house might not become their graves." The Gloss upon the Babylonian Talmud thus; "Sharon was the name of a place, whose ground was not fit for bricks: and therefore, they often repaired their houses within seven years."

Among the villages, scattered up and down in this pleasant vale, we meet with Caphar Lodim, between Lydda and the sea. There is mention of it in the book Gittin, in the very beginning: "He that brings a bill of divorce from a heathen country is bound to witness thus, -- This bill was written I being present, and was sealed I being present. -- R. Eleazar saith, Yea, he that brings it from Caphar Lodim to Lydda": R. Nissim, explaining the place, saith thus; "Caphar Lodim was without the land of Israel, neighbour to Lydda, which was within [the land], and partook of its name, because some people of Lydda were always present there."