Welcome to Israel

Why Holy Land?   

When the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, in the days of king Darius, he saw a vision of a man with a measuring line who said he was going to measure the dimensions of Jerusalem. Then an angel speaks the word of God. The Lord will be a wall of fire around Jerusalem and the glory in her midst, he says (2:5). Those who plundered God’s people, the Babylonians, will be plundered themselves. Then he gives the people a culminating reason to rejoice.

“And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people and I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. And the LORD will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land and will again choose Jerusalem” (2:11-12 ESV).

    When I read passages like this, it’s hard to imagine what Zechariah’s audience would be thinking. What was their mental picture of the man measuring Jerusalem? How did they view God as a wall around it and how was this significant to them? What did they think of God calling the land holy? In my life, I don’t usually think about the importance of place in the Bible, but since the Garden of Eden, God has used real locations to reveal himself to his people or conceal himself from them. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, their most immediate punishment was banishment from the garden. When Israel and Judah were unfaithful to Yahweh, He exiled them from the land. God’s blessings and curses are often connected to his people's location. 

    As an American, I don't often think about the biblical concept of land. I often consider a piece of land in terms of how expensive it is to live there, what the weather is like and what kind of community it is in. But a place like Israel is piled with a deep history that goes beyond these surface issues. 

This is why I’m thankful that I get to visit this land for a semester of study. I’ve been here for about a week and I’m already learning so much that I’ve never thought about. One of the classes I’m taking here is called Land and the Bible. I get to learn all about the geography, history, and culture associated with the holy land of Israel. I can finally see with my own eyes things that I’ve read and heard about all my life. I can walk on the walls of Jerusalem, visit Galilee where Jesus ministered, and find ancient ruins dating from Roman times to the reigns of David and Solomon. I get to rediscover the holy land for myself and what makes it holy.

I’m thrilled to share what I find!

The Old City

The best part about the Land and the Bible trip is that we get to take field trips almost every week to different sites in Israel. Some of them will be multi-day trips to places like Galilee in the North or the Negev in the South. Our first trip was an overview of the Old City in Jerusalem. Nineteen other students and I piled into an orange bus with our two guides to see the famous city where God promised to dwell.

When we got off the bus right outside the Jaffa gate, cars, buses and trucks were crowding around us. We were in the center of Jerusalem at 7:30 in the morning and the streets were already busy with traffic. Cars seemed to honk for no apparent reason and motorcycles squeezed through any opening they could find. I was surprised that none of them got into an accident.

In front of us stood a wall. It was light tan and didn’t look to be very tall when we were approaching it, but when the group came up to its base, I felt the awe of its size. This is the outside wall of what is now called the Old City of Jerusalem. It’s hard to tell exactly when this wall was built. Most places have different layers of stone built at different times, one built on top of the other. But the top part of the wall, the most recent stone, was laid by Ottoman Turks in around 1500 AD. Below it I could see stones dating to the time of Herod the Great, and even back to the Iron age when Israel’s first temple was made. Archeologists have excavated much of the wall outside the city, exposing these different layers in some places all the way down to the bedrock.

When I approached the wall with our tour group, I tried to imagine what it was like for an enemy Babylonian or Assyrian to come to lay siege against it. Would it have looked similar? How would they feel watching the Israelites peer down on them? It made me feel small to look up.

The Old City. In the Christian Quarter just inside Jaffa Gate.

Our first tour of Jerusalem focused mainly on the walls and gates of the old city. We also climbed up to the roof of several buildings (the tower of David and the Austrian Hospice) to get a panoramic view of the city and landscape beyond. The best view was from the tower of David which is part of a museum built on the supposed site of Herod’s palace. This is where Jesus would have been brought before Pilot and condemned by the Jews as a blasphemer. The view was like seeing a dream come to life. On our west, facing away from the old city, I could see the watershed ridge, with the king David hotel on it. This ridge runs North and South, on the opposite side of the Hinnom valley which flows along the west wall of the old city, then turns East to wrap around the southern wall and meet up with the Kidron valley. Facing south, we could see for a long way. The city was replaced with rolling hills and flatter land towards Bethlehem and Moab. On the east was the mount of olives, rising on the opposite side of the Kidron valley. In the city itself, there were countless domes and spires from churches and mosques rising from the sand-colored buildings.

Southern view of the city and beyond from the roof of the Austrian Hospice. Mount of Olives can be seen rising in the upper left-hand corner. 

Throughout the tour, we were able to go to many of these famous sites. One of the most notable was the Western Wall (formerly known as the Wailing Wall). This is the retaining wall on the west side of the temple mount. It is the Jew’s most holy site since it is the closest they can get to the ancient stone of the original temple which is now covered by the famous Dome of the Rock mosque. I had heard about the wall, but I was not expecting to be able to go up to it. It was a light tan color and made from huge, rectangular rocks. They looked to be about one and a half feet tall and three feet long, they were worn and pockmarked. In the crevices between each rock of the lower courses, notes were shoved, containing the prayers of hundreds of Jewish people. 

Our guide said we could go up to the wall so I approached it not knowing what would happen. The stone was smooth to the touch. Countless hands must have touched it, countless foreheads pressed against it in prayer. Our guide told us that the lowest seven courses of the wall are from when Herod expanded the temple. These courses go down into the bedrock for nineteen more rows. I can’t quite fathom how impressive this wall must have looked in ancient times. The wall itself was crowded with devout worshippers, men on the left and women on the right. Many people read prayer books or sat down in chairs to pray. It felt odd to be standing among these people. I saw some young boys praying by the wall and wondered what they were thinking. Did they feel closer to God here than anywhere else? 

The Western Wall

When I stood by the wall I didn’t feel especially close to God, but the more I thought about being by the wall and in the city that day, I felt a certain sense of awe. It’s like going to the house of someone you know and love but can’t see anymore. Things this person has been around or handled which would normally be mundane and common are made special, almost holy one could say. I expect to continue to experience this sense of rediscovery as I go back to Jerusalem and explore all around Israel, the land in which God promised to make his name dwell.