Masada and Herod the Great

There is no record that Herod the Great ever stayed at Masada. His family did, and he ordered the massive building on Masada. The 3 different connected hanging palaces are incredible.

An inside look at the middle "hanging palace".

Model of the Roman Bathhouse. You do have to question Herod's mental capabilities. All Roman Bathhouses include a sauna, and this one was no exception. Who builds a sauna in the desert, where it is regularly above 40 degrees celcius?

Our group in the sauna.

The decorations on the walls are authentic

The floor of the sauna. They rebuilt a piece to show how the floor was on top of the pillars, and how the hot air could circulate beneath it.

As the story goes, Herod's family stayed at Masada and almost died from lack of food. As a result, enormous storage rooms were built. When Masada was excavated, they found some preserved fruits that were still edible.

Everywhere throughout the fortress of Masada you can see a black line. Everything under the black line is authentic. Above it is everything that was rebuilt. One storage room they left the way it was found.

Here is a very big cistern. There is an interesting, and very big, water system at Masada. It doesn't rain here, but it rains quite a distance from Masada. The water travels through a wadi and gets caught up in the cisterns built in the side of Masada. The people then had to carry the water from down there to the top where the people lived.

Faith Lesson:

In the wadi, down at the bottom of Masada there are trees, so you know that there is sometimes water. Jeremiah 17:7-8 says:

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."

We should be like these trees. You don't see the water but you know it is there just by looking at the trees.