MAY 26—The drive south of Jerusalem winds through the Judean hills. It’s a good place for a busload of learners to take on a truckload of history. These are ancient lands, and we are following ancient paths.
Much has changed, of course. The stone-cutting industry dominated the modern city of Hebron, site of the grave of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). We rolled along asphalt roads through David country, hills and valleys he knew well from his days as a shepherd, fugitive and monarch. We saw traces of an early road traversing the spine of the hills that run the length of Israel.
As the hills began to flatten, we visited Tel Arad and wandered the ruins of a village on rocks put into place by human hands more than 5,000 years ago, a thousand years before Abraham made his way into the area. On the hill above us stood portions of a fortress built in the time of King Uzziah a mere 3,000 years ago.
A few miles further south and the Negev truly begins. We spent several hours at Mamshit learning about the rise and fall of the Nabateans, the masters of the desert who filled a strategic role controlling trade across the deserts linking East with West. Long before the Suez Canal, camel caravans kept Egypt in touch with Mesopotamia and connected India and other worlds with the countries of the Mediterranean.
The Nabateans are the people who built Petra in Jordan. Mamshit was an important crossroads on the caravan route. We saw remnants of an early shopping mall and well-preserved traces of its religious and social history. Most of it dates from Roman and Byzantine times.
A highlight of the journey was a short walk down a canyon adjacent to the site. Here we gathered under an overhang to simply sit still and sample a taste of the vast silence of the desert. Then we read a few Bible passages about the dangers of the desert environment, as well as those seeing it as a spiritual reservoir. The spare surroundings wonderfully concentrate the mind on the things of God.
Our final stop on a long desert day was at Beer Sheva, where an ordinary looking hill reveals a fascinating world of history and human development. This is the place where Abraham settled, from where he sent Hagar and Ishmael packing and from whence he took Isaac to offer him as a sacrifice.
It’s where he established a covenant with neighbouring peoples and dug wells. A well on the site is very, very deep. It’s where Rachel and Isaac fell in love. It’s where Jacob tricked his brother and the place from which he fled. It’s the only location where all three of the patriarchs had direct communication from God.
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