Weekly Picture from Israel 180418

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History of Israel -The Jordan River

The Jordan River, also known by its Hebrew name, haYaden, is one of the most famous rivers in the world. It begins in the mountainous region where Israel, Lebanon and Syria connect, and travels some 360 km south, as well as descending some 950 metres down through the Jordan Rift Valley, below sea level to the Dead Sea. It is about ten metres across and fairly shallow, sometimes rising to two metres deep.

The Jordan is known universally by almost every person in the Jewish and Christian faiths. Songs are sung about it, Prophets have spoken of it, many have been healed in its waters, great kings and mighty armies have crossed it, wars have been fought over it, and miracles were performed in its waters.  It continues to be a place of spiritual and political significance. John the Baptist, who was known as Yochanan the Immerser in Biblical times, established the Jordan as a place to be baptised. Historically, the Bible tells us that Yohanan (John) fled to this area when he was persecuted by Herod.  This prevented him from continuing his priestly duties in the Temple, as he was in line, through his father, to become a High Priest. However, after deposing the then High Priest, the Roman authorities appointed a succession of four High Priests, with Joseph Caiaphas being the most prominent during the time of Rabbi Yeshua.

From the late 1990s, the members of kibbutz Yardenit, situated on the banks of the Jordan River at the Southern tip of the Sea of Galilee, is host to many hundreds of thousands of tourists and pilgrims, who come to this peaceful and spiritual place where Yeshua Himself is said to have been immersed by John the Baptist. Also in the area tourist can enter the Baptism Archaeological Park and see the remains of a Byzantine monastery and many churches, including one which surrounds a cave which is traditionally believed to be the cave of John the Baptist.

Because the Jordan’s natural flow is interrupted by many dams, where the water is used for domestic and agricultural purposes, the amount of flow is now reduced to 10-15%, leaving the lower Jordan heavily polluted by sewage and industrial run-off.

Israel © MEA-20180418 (C483) History of Israel -The Jordan River

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Weekly Picture from Israel 180411

Pictures from Israel

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Rosh Hanikra is host to one of the more fascinating geological formations, the Blue-water cave grottoes at the base of a white chalky cliff-face which opens up into these spectacular grottoes. They are situated at the top end of Israel, on the shores of the Mediterranean and north-west of the Galilee region and just meters away from Israel’s border with Lebanon. Soldiers are permanently stationed here to protect Israeli citizens and tourists alike. The residents of Rosh Hanikra kibbutz manage this tourist site, which in turn provides funding for its various agricultural and other interest.

Strategically, Rosh Hanikra could one day be part of a proposed Cairo-Haifa-Beirut rail link. The sea travels some 200 metres into the grotto. In 1968, a 400-metre long tunnel was dug between the grottoes which gives it more tourist appeal, especially when visitors can easily get to the grottoes by cable car, which descends at a 60-degree gradient from the top of the cliff down to the tunnels. This cable car is advertised as the steepest in the world.

Ancient history records Rosh Hanikra as being one of the important trade routes for merchant caravans and often used by armies travelling to and from Lebanon and Syria in the north and Israel, Egypt and Africa in the south. In the Book of Joshua in the Bible, a place called Misraphot Mayim, located south of Rosh HaNikra is mentioned because of it was at the northern border of the Tribe of Asher, part of the Kingdom of Israel. Also historian Josephus Flavius writes that Rosh Hanikra is the northern border of the city of Acre, (from The Jewish War 2, 10, 2). And, in the Jewish book I Maccabees, verse 11:59, it mentions the restoration of an independent Jewish kingdom and Shimon HaHashmonai being responsible for this region, in the middle of the 2nd century B.C.E.
Alexander of Macedonea (323 B.C.E.) is purported to have cut a tunnel at Rosh Hanikra so his army could pass through. General used of this roadway include armies of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies during their wars in the third and second century B.C.E. and the Crusaders in 1099 C.E. Then, during World War 1, the British Army made the road safe for motor vehicles.

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Copyright exists in all the material on this website and is owned by Messianic Education Australia Ltd. unless otherwise explicitly stated. This copyright extends to the images, logos, layout and presentation styles as well as the text material.