Bouncing through Benjamin

Impression Report 4

Land of Benjamin

9/22/13

            Benjamin, or as Jacob called him a “ravenous wolf” became a people of in-between places. The inheritance of the tribe of Benjamin is a belt of land that lies in the middle of the land of Israel just to the north of the dead sea and crossing from east to west through the mountains between the coastal plain and the rift valley. It's here that much of the most important roads meet. For those living in the mountains, the easiest way out of the valleys and ridges is to travel either east to Jericho or west toward Gaza. Of the two, Gaza would be a more beautiful choice. We began our day looking to the east, over wadi Qelt. A big, desolate, dry, and quiet set of valleys creating the branching network leading down and out toward the dead sea just past Jericho. This truly is a wilderness, once one crosses the watershed ridge and steps into the rain shadow in the east, the green hills change to dust very quickly. It was this wadi that we walked down today, seeing just how long a trip some of the wadi could take, even going downhill almost the whole way.

            One notable thing we discussed on this trip was Deuteronomy 32:10 that says “...He kept him as the apple of his eye.” which also means the pupil of his eye. And we talked about God looks closely at us and because of Jesus He sees Himself in us. When we look closely into God's eyes we see our own reflection there, we see ourselves as we truly are, fallen, broken, but mercifully allowed to be His sons and daughters. It was an interesting and beautiful image.

            As we descended we also passed by some wild Rock Hyraxes, or Rock badgers, reminding me of the Proverb that says “The rock badgers are a feeble folk, Yet they make their homes in the crags” speaking of the wisdom exhibited by some creatures here on earth. The Proverb in chapter 30 verses 24 through 28 says “There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceedingly wise: The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their food in the summer; The rock badgers are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks (a wise and safely guarded place); The locusts have no king, yet they go forth all by rank (speaking of locust swarms moving as a single swarm); The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.” An interesting and more current translation for the final line renders it “the lizard can be grasped in the hand, yet it is found in kings’ palaces,” which is the very state of things here at JUC. Not many spiders have I seen here on campus, but geckos and small lizards I have.

            As we finished our descent we landed in the area of Jericho, but specifically we went to one of King Herod's palaces, right there at the bottom of the canyon mouth, where the water funneling down the wadi would have run past. It was here that we stopped and considered the vast wealth accrued by Herod. Here that we discussed how some places had tax rates as high as 80 percent, partly out of greed, and partly because it's difficult to rebel against your ruler when you're spending every moment you can trying as hard as you can just to survive, just to feed your family.

            With that poverty in mind we also discussed Zacchaeus and the taxing system. Often times the way the taxes worked was Kingpin 1 would say this region should bring me 500 coin, and the region administrator in charge of giving him those funds would tell his city heads they all owe him a total of 600 coin, and the city heads would tell their tax men they needed to gather him 650 coin and so each of those tax men would tell each individual they owed so much of that 650 plus whatever the tax man took for himself as pay. So each person along the chain would get his own slice. But also increasing by quite a bit, the total taxes taken from the people. This can explain why Zacchaeus would have been so very rich. It also would have explained why he was so very hated too. He was one of the men responsible for the extreme poverty in his region, and he clearly was benefiting from it.

            Next we went to the actual Tel where old Jericho once stood and saw some old mud bricks and stone walls. The old wall and tower unearthed there is thought to be pieces of the oldest city on earth.

           It was after this that we took the bus all the way back up towards the central Benjamin plateau, the largest, flattest part of Benjamin's land where the majority of agricultural work would have taken place.
And we followed approximately the same route that Joshua and the Israelite warriors would have taken when going up to battle at Gibeon. Marching all night from Jericho, uphill, in dry dusty conditions to start a battle, the longest battle of history, for God listened to Joshua and made the sun and moon stand still in the sky while they chased their enemy from Gibeon all the way down the Beth-Horon ridge route out to the west, then south down to Azekah. Not a short trip at all. In fact the trip as a whole should have taken them about 4 days, sleeping at night and marching all day. But the Lord helped them in the battle and they fought for many, many, many hours and chased their enemy no less than 19 miles before returning all the way back to Gilgal near Jericho. Traveling a distance about as long (in total) as the journey from the northern end of the Dead Sea, straight west to the coast. Yet more difficult for the terrain they traveled was all in the hills, not the easy straight lines of the plains near the coast.

            On our ride up to the plain we went past many Bedouin encampments and stopped to look at the soil. Some of it was alluvial, composed of both Senonian(rendzina) and Cenomanian(tera rosa) derived soils. It was rather clay like, and best suited to farming crops that had strong enough roots to penetrate through the clay nature of the soil. Sand added to the clay helps to break it down some, but in the end, the soil there was only so useful. Some Bedouin were preparing the soil for planting of the winter wheat and barley.

We paused to examine some of the dirt of the region and found a boundary marker. Andrew likes taking pictures of Alana taking pictures. 

            We also passed (as typical for Israel) many olive orchards. And saw in the distance a stone quarry, which is also expected since concrete and stone are the most common tools of construction here.

            After we went to the lookout at Nebi Samwill we had a very good idea of the Benjamin plateau's size and geography, being able to see the majority of it at once.

From there we went to tel Gezer where we could barely see the ocean, and on the other side we could see the hills we had just come out from. We also looked at the six chamber Solomonic gate. And I was announced king of Hawaii who married Alana princess of Montana so that our countries would have beneficial trade agreements. And how I would have erected an embassy for her country which would have been a temple to worship her Montanan god Yeti.

Crowning Andrew King of Hawaii