Shephelah/Negev/Dead Sea Field Study

I’m a little slow getting an update posted this week. It’s been hard because I have so much to share. I can figure out where to start, but not where to stop! I have resolved to only include the basics of this last field study – which is painful for me, but better than nothing!

This was a 3-day field study, to the lowlands (the Shephelah), the Negev and the Dead Sea. We started our journey just west of Jerusalem in the Sorek Valley. Before modern invention, it was a place that was not easily accessible due to the steep rugged hills and the narrow v-shaped valleys that are here (no natural routes). But in Solomon’s day, when life was pretty comfortable (I Kings 4: 15…every man had his own vine and fig tree) this was a good place to live. The park authority has tried to recreate some sense of this here, so we hiked down into the valley to take a look.

The fantastic thing about our field studies is that you are sure to encounter a sight that conjures up imagery from Scripture. I call this my “Balaam picture” (Num 22). Can you just see him going through a pass just like this?

Okay – I could show you a million sites, but that would require a million pictures and even more information, so I will leave it at this – we visited the remains of many important Biblical sites this weekend. I am including this picture of Beer Sheva, mostly because there has been so much reconstruction here, so you can really get a feel for what the town would have been like. Enjoy….

One other site I really enjoyed was Azekah. From here you could look down into the Elah Valley, where the infamous story of the battle of David and Goliath took place. Where exactly in the valley? We aren’t sure – but you can get the lay of the land. So have a look – and use your imagination…We also went to En Gedi, where there are springs coming out to the west of the Dead Sea south of Qumran. It is also a beautiful spot, remembered as the place David hid in caves from Saul (and wrote several Psalms here). Here is one of the waterfalls…

A bonus at the end of one our days was some beach time! We visited Ashkelon, which is right on the Mediterranean. After seeing the site, we were here long enough to watch the sun set.

We took some AMAZING hikes on this trip. As we moved south, the wilderness was more and more overwhelming. We stopped for several hours and hiked in the “Wilderness of Zin” (Num 20:1). It was so beautiful….

...ever been cautioned for the upcoming abyss?? It would be great if I could get warnings like this when I am dangerously close to “abysses” in life!

Sparing you the geological details, another phenomenon in the south are 3 large erosion craters found atop 3 ridges in the Greater Negev. We visited the largest one – Makhtesh Ramon. It is the largest erosion crater on earth, about 10 miles long, and quite amazing.

Sitting on the edge of it felt like sitting on the edge of the world.

Even the Ibex like the view. :)