The tangibility of the land.

The warm weather is blowing my mind here in Israel. I am so thankful I can skip a winter in the cold Poconos. When we drove to our first stop at Tel Beer-sheva, I ignorantly thought to myself, “What kind of desert has so much green plant life?” I had forgotten for a moment that I am experiencing the warm winter of the southern part of Israel, thus I had also forgotten that it is the rain season. Abraham would go to Gerar in the summertime due to famine, and I do not blame him one bit. If the winter is this hot, I cannot imagine the heat that the desert pumps out in the summer.


As usual, learning about the Tel Beer-Sheva itself was enlightening. Pieces of the puzzle continued to be put together, giving me such a better view of the Bible. Beer-sheva is placed conveniently in the fork of the Nahal Hebron and Nahal Beer-sheva, and since travel would have been along the bottom of wadis, we know that these were significant local/international trade routes. The international trade route through the Negev demands that there be a city to moderate trade through the area; Beer-sheva served as that very city. 1 Kings 9 gives us an illustration of its importance. Solomon has control over the main gateways to the coast: Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. But in addition to these strategic cities, it is noted that he had control of Tamar, implying that he had control over the route down to it as well. Beer-sheva, west of this route, and evidently also controlled by Solomon, is a strategic city linking Tamar to the Coastal Plain as well as Egypt. It is amazing that out of the lowly city of Jerusalem, this broad area throughout the Land Between had been controlled: from Hazor to Tamar, from Megiddo to Beth-Shan, from Gezer to Jericho, and all that was in between .


A small note concerning the horns on the altar. I had never understood the purposes of those horns until today. We saw a model of the type of altar that the Israelites would have used (though it was Ashler Masonry, and the stones were actually supposed to be uncut). The simplicity of it is somewhat embarrassing: they are for tying the animal up. It was also a symbol for God’s protection over the people, but regardless, I probably would not have guessed it.


Tel Arad was a city in the middle of nowhere. We looked at the pool where all of the six to eight inches of rainfall per year would drain, and I was shocked to learn that the occupation of the city lasted for more than half a millennia. The people built the city so that it contained slopes leading down to a large pool that collected rainfall. It was somewhat ingenious. Arad was strategic for the route down from Hebron to Tamar. Anyone (like Solomon) who had control of this would have benefited greatly from it. The trade from the coming from the south towards Egypt, the Coastal Plain, Israel or Syria and beyond would have gone through this city (or gone through a much more challenging route). The remains there were among the best that I have been blessed to see. I have realized today that the reason why the biblical events are becoming more tangible is that the places that we are observing have much less civilization surrounding them - I appreciated that about this site.


Both our visit to the Nabatean site of Avdat and the Mahktesh Ramon were absolutely extraordinary. The Nabateans were absolute geniuses that built dams across wadis in order to turn six to eight inches of water per year to twenty-four to thirty inches, the same amount of rain fall as Jerusalem. This idea was incredible, giving water in over a half of million acres of land in the combined six Nabatean cities. One may wonder how it was possible for the Spice Trade from the south to make it through the desert under such harsh conditions; the answer lies with the secrets of the Nabateans who thoroughly persevered with this method of water gathering.



The Super Bowl, simply put, was the greatest view of any land that I have ever had in my life. The broad, water-eroded crater, the biggest in the world, exposed the volcanic rock of basalt, 1200 feet down. In a matter of five feet off of the cliff, I would have been plummeting all that way down - a straight drop. Fortunately, when me and Craig were taking pictures, we only had one close call...