Jerusalem - To the South

Monday 20 April

Driving Tour of the South West Region. Valley of Elah, Cave of Adullam, Lachish, Beer Sheba, Yad Mordachai

We left the hotel at 9:45 as we had to make a ‘Masada like’ ramp to get our hemmed in car out of the vacant lot car park opposite the Hotel. Despite being a little late we left feeling very chuffed with our achievements as we managed to achieve our freedom without leaving a muffler of bumper bar behind on the rocks.

Anthony and Fiona were not up to traveling today so the four remaining couples traveled south via the valley of Elah the place where the Philistines and the Israelites faced off against each other across the little brook. The standoff ended with the head of Goliath dangling in David’s hand.

The Cave of Adullam was interesting. We shared the cave with about eight busloads of 8-9 year olds and teachers who had come to see the bats. Several of the teachers had automatic or single shot rifles slung over their shoulders! The cave is at the end of a long wadi or small valley and very concealed. The entrance to Adullam was covered by a huge fig tree reaching out to the sun from a crevice in the rock deep in the caves mouth. The tree was in full leaf and budding figs. As Jesus said in his parable “Behold the fig tree and all the trees, when they now shoot forth ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.” If the fig tree does represent Israel, what an amazing thing to be in the land when the Israeli fig tree has been dormant for so many centuries, and to be here with hundreds of young Jewish children! The nation is budding forth in the land,,,, and the ancient prophecies of are judgment looming.

Pris in a beam of sunshine in the Cave Adullem. The trunk of the old Fig tree is in the background.

The budding Fig Tree. Symbol of Israel's rebirth

We visited Lachish, the site where the Assyrian King Sennacherib was successful in his siege, before God disgraced him at Jerusalem. Then we drove to Beersheva where Abraham camped with his family for a considerable part of his life. We also looked out across the plain to the east and imagined the Australian Light horse with the ANZAC’s galloping towards the city in 1917 when the British wrested control from the Turks. I believe the Balfour declearation was signed on teh very same day they took the city.

Access to the water was piped from Hebron to ancient Tel Beersheva

The group in front of a recreated alster at Beersheva

We then went to the Yad Mordechai Kibbutz. There is a book written (Six days at Yad Mordechai) on the events of the 1948 War of Independence, and the fight against the Egyptian army as it advance towards Tel-Aviv. The Jews have made it into a memorial and education centre. They have recreated the battle scene and documented it in a remarkable way in the museum on site.

Part of the recreated battle scene with Egytian army siloets advancing on the Kibutz.

The group in front of the statue of Mordechai Anielewicz the leader of the Warsaw Gheto uprsing whose namesake the Kabbutz was called.

An amazing story of the determination of the Jewish settlers to resist the Arab onslaught, and a silent testimony to God’s help during the heady days of the birth of the nation. The Mordechai Museum was an unexpected surprise, and well worth seeing if you are visting the land.

Ruth near the Jaffa Gate with the Citidel of David in the background in the evening