The Land of Benjamin

The Land of Benjamin

The land of Benjamin is small, yet it seems like it is the most diverse allotment of land, and a piece of land that sees most of the action that goes on in the land of Israel. The tribe of Benjamin seems to be the tribe that is the most ‘in between’ within the Land in Between. Like it was said in class, out of all of the different pieces of land in Israel, most things happen in this one.

            In the morning we started off heading east from Jerusalem. It doesn’t take long before we cross the Mount of Olives and find ourselves in the rain shadow of the wilderness.

'paths of righteousness' the paths that the sheep walk 

 It surprised me of how little you can hear in the wilderness. Minus all the modern day noises far off it was wind and birds that we could hear.  In the mornings it tends to be quite calm, and the birds are the first one up and that is where we get the saying,  ‘The wings of the dawn’. Maybe David being a shepherd was familiar with that particular time of day, the early morning before things really got going.

Psalm 139:1-10

You have searched me, Lord,

    and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

    you perceive my thoughts from afar.

 

You discern my going out and my lying down;

    you are familiar with all my ways.

 

Before a word is on my tongue

    you, Lord, know it completely.

 

You hem me in behind and before,

    and you lay your hand upon me.

 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

    too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

    if I settle on the far side of the sea,

 

even there your hand will guide me,

    your right hand will hold me fast

Another image from the desert that I found interesting was the fact that the Hebrew uses the same word to describe the wilderness, ‘a howling wasteland’ (Deut. 32:10) and in Genesis 1:1 ‘formless and empty’. In a way the hills of the desert can look like waves and both the desert and the waters carry the imagery of chaos in the ancient Middle East. 

            

From there we traveled east some more until we got to a spot where we hike Wadi Quelt out to Jericho.  It was a good hike, I appreciated that we were headed down instead of up as the descent is quite steady down towards Jericho.  The path was narrow at points and the canyon quite steep.

Once in Jericho we stopped first at the New Testament site of Jericho. Herod builds another palace here in Jericho. It is quite a nice place to build it, there are large springs in this area and it is always warm making is a very fruitful area.  Here is Jericho we talked about a man who was blind calling out to Jesus and being told to be quiet by the people. Maybe they were afraid that Herod was going to hear the commotion and cause trouble.

Another story we talked about was a short man name Zacchaeus.  He was a tax collector and a city like Jericho where there is plenty of produce; it must have generated lots of revenue in taxes. Apparently it is estimated that the rate of taxes was about 80% in the 1^st c. AD, and a good portion of that was being pocketed by a series of middlemen who collected the taxes. These ‘sinners’ were the people who Jesus spent time with. It makes me think that if Jesus was so intentional about looking beyond what culture thought of certain groups of people or people with certain histories, then maybe as followers of Christ we too are called to look beyond. Jesus seemed more concerned with the person and their heart than what they did or how ‘bad’ they were.

After the New Testament Jericho we traveled a little bit north to the site of the where Joshua took Jericho. It was interesting to see how well this site fits the Biblical account of the story of Jericho. There still are disputes about the dates and lining everything up in that way.  It made me wonder that if the Israelites had celebrated the Passover just prior to crossing the Jordan River, it would be the time for the festival of the first fruits. Jericho was to be a city for the Lord, and therefore it was burned completely. Was this their first offering of first fruits?

the remnants of the walls of Jericho. 

After spending time in the desert and in the area of Jericho we traveled west across the land of Benjamin. A quick stop to look at the terra rosa soil that is common in that area.  We headed to a spot where we could look out over the Central Benjamin Plateau. It was a helpful place to get out bearings on the things around us.

terra rosa soil, turns into a clay when it get wet, it is great for the summer crops such as grapes and pomegranates. 

overlooking the Central Benjamin Plateau

The last stop for the day was on the far side of the Land of Benjamin. On the edge of the Shephelah (the foothills) was the city of Gezer. This site is only mentioned a couple times and the one that we talked about was when the Pharaoh of Egypt gave his daughter to Solomon in marriage and the city of Gezer was her dowry. The standing stones that are there have probably stood for a while even before the Israelites made it there. Although no one knows what they were exactly for it is thought that they are there for some religion. It leaves me wondering if they were for some religion why were they left standing. Or were they already simply stones by the time that the Israelites got there?