Daniel hotel

 The Daniel is a hotel on the edge of the dead sea

^{Marc, Moria and I went for a float in the sea}

^{Sarah actually dipped under water, not recommended} 

^{She ran to the showers to get the salt our of her eyes}

Lachish

On our way to Lachish we walked through a vineyard

made me think of Jesus words:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

Lachish is a very large tell, lots of excavation can be done yet

We could not go in, so we had our lesson at the foot of the tell

The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field
 

Hezekiah was like David:

 And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: “Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, Lord, and hear; open your eyes, Lord, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God.  “It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands.  They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands.  Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord, are God.”

We sang: "Open the eyes of my heart Lord

Learning with our Feet

 we walked through the ripening grain

harvest has begun

this is Pentecost time (Feast of in-gathering)

 Going around the long way

(to avoid looking at the sign)

we went down

There Todd asked us:

What is it???

I didn't say anything for fear of looking foolish

looked like bird's nests to me

It is a Columbarium - a place where they raised pigeons

we also saw an olive press but it fits better later in the story

We saw a lot of sheep

 and a shepherd, throwing stones to sheep that ventured

to far from the flock

So nice to walk the road less traveled

 a locust tree = the food of John the Baptist

I remember drawing these winged insects as his food

I guess we have to get new pictures once in a while

It was the seed of the locust (carob) tree that was his food

John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.

Azekah

 Looking out at Azekah where the Israelite were

Azekah is the hill above our heads

Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah

sliding down to the bus

we rarely went back on the bus at the same place we left 

Elah Valley

Washroom break

Many varieties of thistles, and quite large

Our next stop was at the Elah valley, a very fertile area

we walked up and around, looking down on this valley

We practice: 

Aijlon - Gezer

Sorek - Beth Shemesh

Elah - Azekah

Arriving at Shaarayim (2 gates)

Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron

Our faith lesson is David & Goliath

We learned about numbers

40 - time of testing

For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.

Saul was the tallest Israeliste

 Kish had a son named Saul, as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else

He is the shepherd, that is his job but:

But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep

Looking at first use in the bible

Saul is introduced not being able to take care of donkeys

David is introduced  as taking care of sheep

Now the donkeys belonging to Saul’s father Kish were lost, and Kish said to his son Saul, “Take one of the servants with you and go and look for the donkeys.”

David heard Goliath

to hear = She'ma

5 stones, one for Goliath and each of his brothers

David uses a sling to throw a stone

God will use you in the way He prepared you

but it is why he threw the stone:

 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel

We have all been given stones (talents)

throw them so the world will know...

...that there is a God

What would you need most?

We were still new at the art of "following the Rabbi"

Tod told us they had found something here and would we want to see it

we actually had to convince some to come down

Agreed it seemed like a black hole in the ground

We came into a well plastered cistern

ancient plaster is of very good quality

We learned about ancient leprosy, poison Ivy would give a person  leprosy

molds would give people leprosy and to prevent this from happening, everything in the ancient world was plastered.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron,  “When you enter the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as your possession, and I put a spreading mold in a house in that land,  the owner of the house must go and tell the priest, ‘I have seen something that looks like a defiling mold in my house.’  The priest is to order the house to be emptied before he goes in to examine the mold, so that nothing in the house will be pronounced unclean. After this the priest is to go in and inspect the house.  He is to examine the mold on the walls, and if it has greenish or reddish depressions that appear to be deeper than the surface of the wall,  the priest shall go out the doorway of the house and close it up for seven days

We were in the first of many Cisterns we would see

The size would tell you about it's population

Many human remains were found in this cistern

When a siege took place, at the end people would try to hide anywhere

some ended up hiding in the cistern

the entrance was blocked and the people perished

These steps were almost faded by the use of many feet before ours

^{We are catching on} to this following without knowing where we go

I actually came to like it a lot
over the next few day this question was often asked:
what would people need to live here?
and we became good at answering:

WATER

Beth Shemesh

on our way to the first stop 

we saw a shepherd out with sheep & goats

Hiking up the tell to the dig

On the other side of the valley is Zorah where we were yesterday

still in Shephelah country

our faith lesson was about pigbones

In the layers of the tell they find animal remains

they filter out the percentage of pigbones 

why pigbones?

And the pig, though it has a divided hoof, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.

In the Canaanite layere 50%

Samson 20-30%

Salomon 10%

Hezekiah 0%

Hezekiah is our hero he tried to follow God 

with all his heart, soul and mind

You cannot be effective if there are to many pigbones in your live

 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.

^{Our pigbones may be found in our DVD collection or our books}

^{maybe on our computer or how we spent our time on the weekend}

^{Here we make judgements on civilizations digging in their garbage} 

^{what will people think in later times when they dig through our "garbage"}

^{what is our legacy?} 

 

Get rid of your pigbones!!!

Maybe something we can do every year in the period of Lent?
I try to go through a part of the house and trow stuff away
for me that was books or DVD's
Although I still have many Nathional Geographic's
they are so interesting but definitely not Christian

Morning Devos

Who are you?

and what are you doing here?

Questions to ask yourself every day