Rain and Snow and Four Sites

Through the rain and snow (that’s right, it snowed this morning), we made it to four locations on day one of our sprint through the Holy Land.

We started the day off in Kiriath Jearim, an area in the mountains not too far east of Jerusalem, where the Ark of the covenant stayed for twenty years when it was returned from the Philistines. Today, there is a garden designed to be similar to what would have existed in the first century including a wine press, an olive press, a watch tower, a tomb, and a mikveh (a bath used for ritual cleansing).

Beit Shemesh was the second stop where we walked up the tel and then down into a cistern. From the top of the tel we were able to see where the story of Samson unfolded. Underground in the cistern we read Jeremiah 2:13.

“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”

With rain coming down, we stopped in Azekah to walk into the valley where David fought Goliath. The rain made for a messy muddy walk, but it also filled the stream that was normally dry – the same stream where David could have grabbed his stones before facing Goliath.

Be’er Sheva was the last stop of the day. The tel of Be’er Sheva was pretty interesting, but the highlight of the location was definitely the large underground cistern. Check out the pictures – and then think how much better it would have been to have seen that with your own eyes.

One day down....
Charles Homer