Today we traveled from Tiberius through the "West Bank" and up to Jerusalem. "Up" means up in altitude even though it is down south on the map.
The West Bank refers to the West Bank of the Jordan river. It's a disputed territory.
We drove through Jericho and ate at the hotel there. Jericho is largely Muslim and inhabited by Palestinians. It is obviously quite impoverished. For the most part people live in multi family apartment buildings. The main source of jobs is tourism, agriculture (date palms) and a bit of construction.
The "other " Jericho whose walls fell down and in which Rahab lived, has not been rebuilt. It is under a "tel" which is a mound of dirt covering multiple centuries of communities.. I was impressed that the days and night.original Jericho was not that large, as most ancient cities were fairly small. Joshua could have easily walked around it daily for seven days and then seven times on the last day.
Jericho is famous also for Zaccheus climbing up in the sycamore tree. The Hebrew word for sycamore means "reconcile" and Zaccheus was reconciled with Jesus during this meeting.
Jericho is also known for being near the area where Jesus was in the wilderness and tempted for 40 days and nights.
We then continued to Jerusalem. As we approached the city, they played the very moving piece "Jerusalem " on the PA system. Of course Karla and I were in tears.
It's late so will sign off for now. Thanks for reading. And, we feel quite safe here.
David
No comments:
Post a Comment