Galilee: Saturday 3/29

We first stopped at a rolling stone tomb that was made one hundred years after Jesus. Only the rich are buried in tombs. Isaiah 53 talks about Jesus being crucified as a criminal but buried as a rich man.

From there we went to (Mount) Megiddo, which in Hebrew is Armageddon. This is the most excavated sight in Israel and they have found ruins from cities in the 3000’s BC, during the very early Canaanite period, which would have been some of the first settlers after the flood. They have found things extending into every other time period since then too. There is a water shaft that was carved during the reign of Ahab. People are confused about what happens here in the end times. Most people think that there will be a battle of Armageddon in the end times, but this is not where the battle, mentioned in Revelation 16, is suppose to happen. Armageddon is where the armies of the world will gather. The battle is going to be in Jerusalem. There are also stables there, which Shalmaneser III says that Ahab supplied his enemy with chariots. The ruins we see there today are from the time of Ahab. It was here that King Josiah, in 609 BC, died trying to stop Pharaoh Neco. It was tragic because he was the last good king of Judah, and twenty years after his death Babylon took Judah into captivity.

We then went to Jezreel, which means ‘God will sow’. In I Kings 21 we have the account of Jezebel and Ahab getting Naboth’s vineyard. Saul had his camp set up in Jezreel before his last battle against the Philistines who were across the valley at Shunam. Saul went around the Hill of Moreh to find the witch to speak with Samuel. Saul and his sons go to Mount Gilboah, which is about three o’clock when looking at Shunam, and die there.

We then went to the Harod spring which is where Gideon chose three hundred men to fight against the Midianites. The Israelites only had trumpets, torches, and pots and they defeated them, which goes to show that the victory was all God’s.

We then went to our last stop in Nazareth, which was the town Jesus grew up in. It is mostly a Muslim city today, and in the time of Jesus it was a humble country town which reflected the humility of the One who came from it.