Saturday, January 20, 2018

Megiddo & Harod's Spring

It's still Saturday and from Mount Carmel we travelled to the ancient and strategic fortress city of Megiddo.  This has a 6000 year history of twenty one cities build one on top of the other!  This causes the site to build up as a mound and is called a tell.  There are many "tells" in Israel.

It was a strategic location because all travel being either for military or commerce purposes  would have to travel via the Jezreel Valley in order to get around the mountain ranges.  The location is as such that you could see approaching armies from far away which is a real military advantage.  The ancient people of Megiddo had built underground passages in order to have access to water from within the city.  We climbed 183 steps down a steep stairway to reach the underground passage way carved out of rock to where the spring was located.

Now it should be noted that Meggido in Hebrew is referred to as Armageddon!

We then headed toward our hotel located in Tiberius on western shore of the Sea of Galilee. But on the way we briefly stopped at Herod Spring which is the place that God directed Gideon to reduce his army from 32,000 to 300 men to fight the Midianites.  Depending on how the soldiers drank the water, determined if they would stay or go with Gideon into battle (see Judges 7).

See more here: Harod Spring & Gideon's Cave


Within the cave, fresh clean, cool water is bubbling out under the rock .

We then finished the day by checking in at the Caesar Hotel in Tiberius and enjoyed a wonderful buffet dinner!   Click here to see more on the history of Tiberius


 32 of us at one long table in the dinning room of the Caesar Hotel.

Shalom!