Jerusalem- Old Testament Walk

This is suppose to be for yesterday.

On the Old Testament we first stopped off at the Broad Wall which was built in the days of Hezekiah (700 BC). Jerusalem was threatened by Sennacherib, the Assyrian king, who was used by God to punish the Southern kingdom of Judah by taking over all the fortified cities of Judah, except the last one, Jerusalem. We see in the different descriptions of Hezekiah in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles that Hezekiah was a righteous man; therefore, God withheld Judah’s total judgment for another time. The account of Sennacherib and Hezekiah can be found in Isaiah 37, 2 Kings 18-19, and 2 Chronicles 32. Because of Sennacherib’s threat God told Hezekiah, through Isaiah, that there would not be an arrow shot, and because of this confidence in God Hezekiah fortified the walls and everything else. When Sennacherib and his army came and during the night the angel of the Lord killed 185,000 men. Because of that enormous loss Sennacherib had to return in defeat without firing a single arrow. This great intervention of God might have inspired the writing of Psalm 48.
From there we went into a small museum where they had a presentation of the city during David’s and Hezekiah’s time, some displays of events surrounding Hezekiah’s time, and some things about the ancient Hebrew culture. They had a copy of the inscription found in Hezekiah’s tunnel, the original one being in Turkey, which gave an account of the workers as they were about to meet. The woman who was presenting everything to us talked to us about graves that the people were buried in. She told us that to find out where the city walls you have to find graves, because no one was buried inside the city. One artifact that was found in a tomb on a necklace of a body was a tiny silver scroll that had scripture on it. This silver piece dates back to 600 years before the Dead Sea Scrolls. Afterward we went on a street, called a ‘cardo’, which dates back to the Roman and Byzantine time that went from the Damascus Gate all the way to the southern side of the city. As we passed through the shops that date back to the time of the Crusaders we then came upon the Zion Gate where we could see the physical evidence of war (i.e. bullet holes) on the gate.
We then headed up to a traditional place of the upper room that Jesus ate His last Passover in. It is not the actual one, because the room dates back to the Crusader time, but Jesus did have this meal in the area we were in (the Western hill). This account of the last Passover takes place in Luke 22:7-23. In the events leading up to the last supper Jesus waited to tell the disciples where it would take place because Judas was going to betray Him and He didn’t want the meal being interrupted. God is the center of the celebration of the Passover, which celebrates the exodus from Egypt, the salvation of the children of Israel. Jesus, God, is the center of that Passover because He gave salvation to all that following day by dying on the cross. An interesting thing that I learned is that the disciples would not have been the only ones present at this meal.
We left this place and came to the traditional grave of King David, which is not it; the real one is on the Eastern hill. We then went to Schinler’s grave.
Schindler saved 1,200 Jews during WWII by buying them so that they could work in his factory, which didn’t produce any real artillery rounds, so that they would not be terminated. By the grave we could overlook the Hinnom Valley, which, in Jeremiah 7:30-34, describes the valley being a “valley of slaughter”. This is referring to when the Babylonians came and destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC. This image can also depict a picture of Hell, in that it depicts the consequence of false worship and the rejection of God being judged. Some people think that there was a trash heap that continually burnt, but there has been no evidence of any large trash heap being there and also it would not have been continually burning because, like in California it could have caused larger fires and a fire could not be sustained in the winter during the rains.
We then went to the Southern end of the Western wall of the Temple Mount where we could see the debris of the destruction of part of the Temple Mount by the Romans. We then went to the Southern part of the Temple Mount. On this side there were the Halda gates, which were two sets of two gates that were the main entrances to the Temple Mount, but were covered up later on.
As we were going to Hezekiah’s tunnel we saw ruins of the actual City of David, which some date back to the Canaanite period. Bill showed us a room that was called the burnt room and in 2 Kings 25:8-12 it describes to us the burning of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Another thing we saw was Warren’s Shaft which is a Canaanite tunnel that might have been used by Joab to conquer Jebus (the Canaanite city of Jerusalem), which is described in 2 Samuel 5:6-10. Going down to the tunnel we saw ruins of a tower that is from the Canaanite period, which might date back to the time of Melchizedeck. Hezekiah’s tunnel is mentioned as one of the great accomplishments of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20:20, which was done in response to Sennacherib’s threat to Jerusalem. The water, in the highest parts were mid-thigh height, but most of the way the water was right above the ankle. The tunnel in one part zigzags because the inscription, which is mentioned above, that we saw in the museum, says that they could hear each other, therefore they zigzagged because they were trying to find each other. It was also pretty low, for a good portion of it and, which would fluctuate, so one moment I would be standing up and another moment I would bump my head and crouch down. The water wasn't cold at all, and it took us about 23 minutes to get through.
After we came from the tunnel we went over to the pool of Siloam. The waters that come from Hezekiah’s tunnel would have emptied into the pool of Siloam, which is now mostly covered with dirt. This pool is significant because Jesus healed a blind man by putting mud on his eyes and telling him to go wash at the pool of Siloam (account found in John 9:1-12).
Finally we went over to what might be the tomb of King David. We don’t know exactly where he is buried but 1 Kings 2 mentions that King David was buried within the walls of the City of David. We don’t find a lot of Jewish remnants, such as the tombs of the kings, because conquerors and people following wanted to erase anything Jewish. This place was made into a quarry by the Romans.

City of David (Right) Kidron Valley (Lower Left)