Today we traveled out of Jerusalem into the wilderness toward the Dead Sea. As we drove out of Jerusalem it became more and more arid. Israel is much like California, with a rainy season in the winter and then many months of dry weather. (Even though we are here close to the rainy season, it has been in the 80’s and 90’s. Today for the first time it got cool in Jerusalem. Our day was spent in the desert, however, where it was still warm.) The Hebrew word for wilderness or desert has the same root as the word speak. It is often in the wilderness where God speaks to us.
The hillside going into the wilderness is the scene for the 23rd Psalm. Lori took this picture through the bus window. The hillside was green because of recent rains. There were crisscrossing paths from thousands of years of goat and sheep feet. In the 23rd Psalm David asked for green paths for his animals. He also asked to be led by still waters. In the south of Israel the water comes from flash flooding as water rushes down from other places above like Jerusalem or Hebron. You can’t have your animals drink rushing water that is filled with debris. The psalmist asks for the Lord to show him a pool where the debris has settled so his animals can drink from it. The wilderness is also a sharp and dangerous place. The hillside casts dark shadows so that it is hard to know where safety is. You can trip and fall into a ravine. But even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we fear no evil.
As we drove into the wilderness our first stop was Masada. Masada is an isolated mountain top fortress above the banks of the Dead Sea. Herod the Great built a palace fortress here as a refuge in case the Jews revolted against him. In the first century there was a group of Jewish extremists known as the Zealots. The Zealots were nationalistic, wanting to take back Israel from the occupying Romans. It is thought that Judas Iscariot, Jesus’ disciple who betrayed him, might have been a Zealot. In 66 AD, about 30 years after Jesus, the Jewish people revolted against the Romans and the Zealots took back Masada. The Romans crushed the revolt in Jerusalem and eventually in Masada. Remains from the Roman siege on Masada can still be seen today. The Romans attacked by building an earthen ramp up the mountainside. Israel ceased to be a nation in 73 AD when the Romans captured Masada. The nation ceased to exist unit it was reestablished in 1948.
From Masada we traveled about 15 minutes to Ein Gedi. Today Ein Gedi is a National Park in Israel. It is an oasis in the desert with several springs to provide water. This place is mentioned in the Bible for its beauty (Song of Songs 1:14). This is also the place where David hid out in the caves from Saul (1 Samuel 24). In the picture on the right you can see some caves on the hill behind me. (I recently taught from this passage in my message series on David. This is where Saul went into the cave and David cut off the corner of his robe.)
At Ein Gedi we saw a Hyrax (see picture). A Hyrax is a rodent-like creature that lives in the crevices of rocks. It is even mentioned a few times in the Bible, where it is also called a Coney (Psalm 104:18; Prov. 30:26).
We then continued on to Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. At Qumran, a Jewish religious group called the Essenes meticulously copied Old Testament manuscripts. It was at this site in 1947 that a Bedouin shepherd threw a rock into a cave and heard a pot break. He went in to discover manuscripts of the Old Testament that dated back to at least 68 AD, when the Romans destroyed the Essene community in Qumran. Archeologists have described this as the greatest archeological discovery in the 20th Century. Qumran is so significant because prior to this discovery, the earliest Old Testament manuscripts we had were from 1000 AD. Qumran manuscripts validated the authenticity of the later manuscripts that had been the basis of our translations of the Old Testament.
We ended the day by “floating” in the Dead Sea. I do not say swimming because, as maybe you might already know, the Dead Sea is so salty that you float on the top. The Dead Sea is also the lowest place on earth.
I will probably put one more posting on the blog from our trip before we return. We have one more full day in Israel, and then Thursday evening we fly back.
