Sunsets and Giants

"Ahh! Salam and good evening to you worthy friend. Please, please come closer. [camera hits him in the face] Too close! A little too close. [camera backs up] There! Welcome to Agrabah!" ...err or Jerusalem (Aladdin anyone?). Enjoy Day 10's musings.

The sunset has always been one of my favorite things to watch and there is no better place to watch it than over a body of water. Today the Mediterranean Sea was that body of water. After the day we had it was a perfect end. I sat on some type of Roman ruin that jutted out of the rocks and watched the sun set with an orange/green/blue hue and I was overwhelmed with gratitude. But that isn’t what this trip to Israel is all about, sunsets happen everywhere.

Today we overlooked the valley where David fought for his people, his land, and most of all His God. After the Israelites complained and complained to Samuel for a king and Samuel explained to them what a king would do to them (1 Samuel 8:10-18), they still demanded a king i.e. Saul. Where was their king who stood a head above the rest (1 Samuel 9:2) when Goliath came knocking? Goliath, the Giant, should have been challenged by Israel’s “giant” Saul but he had a child go in his place. David knew how to fight for God, how to stand up to those who challenge the name of God. An interesting thing to note is that gods in that time were gods of geographical locations. Thus, the Philistine god was a god of the coastal plains and the Israelite god was one of the hills. 1 Samuel 17:43 says that Goliath “cursed David by his gods.” Goliath did not believe that David’s god could handle him in the valley near the coast. David was faithful to God, entrusting his life and the life of his family into His hands (because if the Philistines got through the valley triumphant Bethlehem would be one of their targets and that is where David’s family was). He defied Goliath showing that God is not a god confined to the hills but that surpasses mere human ideas and boundaries.

We went to a couple other places today such as Beth Shemesh and the Sorek valley. There were cities in the territory of Dan and Judah that were essential to the survival of the people of God. Beth Shemesh was set apart as a Levitical city in Joshua 21 and in 1 Samuel 6 it is the first city that the Ark of the Covenant reaches when the Philistines return it after taking it in one of their victories over the Israelites. The thing that impressed me the most about Beth Shemesh was the fact that the Ark of the Covenant was there. Unfortunately a couple people in that city died because they didn’t obey God, seventy people to be exact, but other than that a really interesting place. God’s ark was there at one point in time. Oh, and no big deal but Beth Shemesh is right by the sites of a couple Philistine cities which had land outside of them for crops through which Samson let 100 foxes run amuck in. That was a mouthful…I mean a handful? The foxes were tied together by their tails with a torch in between them, lit. In laymen’s terms Samson burnt all the crops of the Philistine cities possibly causing starvation among them if they did not figure something out quickly.

I saved one of the best views and insights in Israelite life in the territory of the tribe of Dan for last. The Sorek valley was absolutely gorgeous. It had lots of openings for caves and opportunity for vineyards on the side of the hills. The basic Israelite mentality in the tribe of Dan is as follows: a cave is three walls and a roof so if you find a cave, you find a house. We sat in one of the caves that probably served as one of those houses and I can only imagine the view these Israelites had when they stepped into their courtyard overlooking the Sorek. Anyways, as usual the views were incredible. We are sleeping in a youth hostel in Beersheba tonight and will go to the Dead Sea on Friday, which I am really looking forward to.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that I thoroughly enjoy going to the sites when we read the passages of Scripture in which they are important. Otherwise they are just another historical site to me. The Scriptures come alive as we read them in the places that they are naming. I can see the soldiers coming down and massacring the Philistines when Goliath was killed. I can see Samson letting burning foxes run through the grain fields of the Philistines. I can see all of this and I’m glad to have seen it. More to come in the following days ladies and gents. This is still just the beginning.