Another fascinating, yet relatively easy day! We worshiped with Rabbi Shor at the hotel. He emphasized the importance of the Jewish base to the New Testament events. He especially spoke about Abraham's meeting with Melchizidek (Jesus) and connected to Jesus' statement, "Before Abraham was, I am." The service closed with a sharing of bread and wine in an Old Testament setting.
We ate breakfast and I went down to float in the Dead Sea -- alone again. Verle is missing such wonderful experiences. I walked down to the sea and later took the shuttle back up. The Dead Sea water was beautiful and the aqua color of Lake Louise with a white crystal beach. The Dead Sea water is wonderful -- smooth and soft. It's nothing like the Great Salt Lake.
I continue to thank God for continued restoration of strength and less coughing and congestion.
We didn't leave until just before noon (as planned) so the morning was relaxing. Masada was the exciting site for the day. We rode a cable car up to the top.
Herod the Great built one of his mountain top fortresses here. Typical of Herod the Great, no detail was left unattended, and his personal privacy, safety, and opulent lifestyle were apparent everywhere.
Herod had left his family at the simple fortress at a time when he was in personal danger. By the time he went back for them, they were almost out of provisions. Herod decided that he needed a more efficient fortress, which he built before Christ's birth on an earlier fortress site. Herod built three levels of private pavilions looking out on the Dead Sea and surrounding area.
Herod obviously wasn't afraid of heights-it's about 1500 feet down to the valley floor!
He had long rows of food storehouses and crop land on the other end of the butte. He channeled the occasional flash floods into the many cisterns all around the mountain. Herod had every possible comfort built for his luxury -- a pool, cold, temperate, and a hot room were built with an elaborate system of clay tiles, a raised floor, parallel clay pipes lining the outer room, an inner room with an arched ceiling and frescoes and beautiful tiled floors. There is no evidence of any frequent use of this site by Herod and his family.
The final use of the Masada fortress was by the Jewish insurgents whose militancy made the Romans decide to finally end the Jewish question in Israel. The Romans wiped out Jewish cities one after another, with Titus leveling Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the destruction of Qumran in 71, En Gedi in 72-73 AD, and the final confrontation at Masada a couple of years later. The Romans used 11 months to build a wall and watch towers in the plains all the way around the fortress, so that no one could escape the final battle alive. The Romans built their encampment and then built a huge, long ramp for their battering ram to reach the walls of the fortress above.
When the final moment came, they breached the wall and retired for a good night's sleep. Knowing that the insurgents would be tortured, killed, made slaves, their wives and children raped and destroyed before them, with the best they could hope for was for a few of them to be paraded through the Roman Empire as an example of what happened to those who dared to stand up against Romans. I would like to see to see the movie, Masada. Josephus records Eleazar Ben-Yair's speech,
"Since we, long ago, my generous friends, resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God himself, who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice. And let us not at this time bring a reproach upon ourselves for self-contradiction, while we formerly would not undergo slavery, though it were then without danger, but must now, together with slavery, choose such punishments also as are intolerable; I mean this, upon the supposition that the Romans once reduce us under their power while we are alive. We were the very first that revolted from them, and we are the last that fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God had granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom, which hath not been the case of others, who were conquered unexpectedly. It is very plain that we shall be taken within a day's time, but it is still and eligible thing to die after a glorious manner, together with our dearest friends....
Let our wives die before they are abused, and our children before they have tasted slavery; and after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually and preserve ourselves in freedom as an excellent funeral monument for us. But first let us destroy our money and the fortress by fire; for I am well assured that this will be a bitter blow to the Romans, that they shall not be able to seize upon our bodies, and shall fail to our wealth also; and let us spare nothing but our provisions, for they will be a testimonial when we are dead that we are not subdued for want of necessaries; but that, according to our original resolution, we have preferred death before slavery."
We spent an hour on the bus traveling from Masada to an area occupied by Bedouin tents a few miles east of Jerusalem. There, "Abraham" entertained us to a sumptuous meal in his tent. Following that, we each got a free camel ride. Wow! Fun!
Riding into Jerusalem was an emotional thing for me. I was replaying the song, "Jerusalem" in my head when our guide put the song on the bus audio system. I about fell apart! How exciting to be in this holy city where Christ was circumcised, came at age 12 and came many more time throughout his lifetime, was welcomed as a king -- and gave up his life and resurrected again.
No comments:
Post a Comment