And the walls came tumbling down! Or did they?
On our prior two times to Israel, we did not go to Jericho, so Lyle and I were looking forward to seeing it. Because it is under Palestinian control, though, our Israeli guide Yossi could not come with us. We dropped him off at rest area that had a cool place to wait for our return. Our driver Abed took us on into Jericho, one of the oldest cities in the world. Today it is a modern city.
A Palestinian guide gave us a tour of Tel Jordan and explained the finds from this very ancient settlement. Have I explained the word tel? If not, archaeologists working in Israel use the term to indicate a mound with several layers of civilization. We were there in the heat of the day, and Jericho at 1300 feet below sea level is the lowest place on Earth. We were sure the temperature was over 100 degrees F! So we whipped through the archaeological excavations. The guide pointed out the “walls that came tumbling down” when the Joshua lead the Israelites into Canaan. Reports, though, from other archaeologists say no evidence supports this story in the Bible. Perhaps someday they will.
Jericho does figure in at least three other biblical accounts: Elisha, the Good Samaritan, and Zaccheus.
Desert surrounds Jericho, but a natural spring makes it an oasis. In ancient times, though, the biblical account relates that the city was “pleasant” but the water impure, resulting in “the ground [being] barren.” The people of Jericho sought out the prophet Elisha to do something about this, which he did by throwing salt into the spring. The results? The Lord “healed” the waters. See 2 Kings 2:18-22. A lovely fountain with the words “Elisha’s Spring Fountain” sits at the base of the tel (seen in the photo below behind the fountain) and commemorates this healing of the waters.
When our three sons were growing up, they loved the biblical story of the Good Samaritan. Most Christians know this prominent parable. Someone asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” And He answered, “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves…” (Luke 10:31). The old road traveled from Jerusalem to Jericho can be seen in the photo below. It winds down the side of the mountain on the far right of the photo.
As we drove out of Jericho to recover Yossi our guide, Abed showed us a sycamore tree. It’s surely not the same one Zaccheus, “a wee little man,” climbed up in order to see Jesus as he passed by, but this tree reminds people of the narrative recorded by Luke, chapter 19, of the lesson that Jesus came “to save that which was lost.”
Our eventful day was not yet over. We headed up north to the Galilee area to visit the national park Bet She’an, a magnificent Roman ruin.
