Masada

One of the many store rooms uncovered by Archaeologists, they found grain here, and actually got it to sprout and grow!
These are the original steps leading to the many buildings and rooms of the palace.
This is one of the many indoor pools of the palace.
One of the Roman encampments, as seen from the top of Masada


Our next stop was Masada........This is one of my favorite places to go in Israel. It is here that the Jewish people fled to escape King Herod, but what is interesting to note is that Masada was Herod's winter palace! The Romans came and encamped around Masada and laid siege to it. They began by making 4 camps around the base of the mountain, and then the soldiers began to build a ramp to the top. As the story goes, the Jewish people would throw huge stones down onto the heads of those building the ramp and so, the Romans began using Jewish slaves instead of soldiers. The Romans knew that the Jewish people would not harm their own. At the end of a few years, on the night before the Romans were going to march up the ramp and take Masada, the Jewish people at the top, committed suicide. Historians say that the Jewish people felt that death was far better than becoming Roman slaves.
This puts me in mind of myself.........would I rather choose to die to myself and to this world, or would I much rather become a slave of it? Sometimes the daily dying to self is the pits.......it would be so much easier to give in, and yet I know that when I choose to die, I will truly LIVE!

More of Israel

I am finally going to try and finish up sharing about our trip to Israel! I guess a few months late.......ok, well a half a year later, isn't too bad.....it could have been worse!
We were able to take a drive up to the Golan Heights and see an army outpost at the top. There are still bunkers there, and we were able to tour them. I would never have been able to live in one of those bunkers......can I just say how thankful I am that I have never had to live in one!
We visited Tel Dan too......all you Bible scholars will remember that this is the place that the children of Israel set up idol worship, instead of going to the temple in Jerusalem like the Lord told them to. Today, there is a replica of an alter there amidst the ruins, and I got talked into climbing up on it, you can see in the photo what ensued after I did!
We made it to the area of the springs where Gideon formed his army. This is the place where the Lord told him to cut back his army to 300 men! The way that the Lord did this is quite strange......and so as you can see from the photos, Mitch and I would have fit right in with the 300.