Day 3: Park to Park & Dinner in the Dark
Welcome back, everybody.
I’m going to share today about the third day of our trip. I started to really struggle with feeling homesick the week that we went on this trip, towards the end of August. The locations that we got to visit really were a breath of fresh air to me. Because I was just soaking up every detail and all of the fresh air, I only had my camera out for our first location. So this really isn’t much of a photography show and tell. The last post was also super long, so, this will be shorter as well.
Ready to go? Me too. It’s been such a joy to go through photos and relive these trips with you.
Caesarea Philippi
“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’”
Our first stop this day was Banias Nature Reserve. There have only been a few places so far here in Israel that have made my heart sit in my stomach. This was one of those places. So spiritually heavy, and so terrible to feel that way because it was so beautiful.
This location is at the foot of the Golan Heights, and Mount Hermon. It was known in Biblical times as Caesarea Philippi, meaning "Philip's Caesarea". Philip was the son of Herod the Great (who, for a massive number of reasons, I have a real beef with…) and Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt. Phillip rebuilt the city Paneas, naming it after himself. This area had been conquered by Alexander the Great, and was heavily influenced by the Hellenistic culture. It was set up in the cave to be a temple and cult center for the god “Pan”. I’m not going into detail here, but the evils that have happened here are horrific. The cave here is literally referred to as the Gates of Hades.
This area, in the mountains with green trees and fresh cool water, was a site for disgusting acts and mortifying sacrifices. And yet, this is the location where Jesus asks His followers, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
“And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.””
Like I talked about in my last post… God has always chosen humble things for the good of His glory. In this situation, He used this wicked district to have Jesus proclaimed to be the Son of the Living God. Not only that, He chooses this location to give Peter and the Disciples the keys to the kingdom.
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.””
It’s such a shame that people use beautiful places for evil. And it’s amazing to me that Jesus chose this place for His big reveal.
We pondered and wandered here for a little bit before we continued on with our day, which was a hike along the Nahal Hermon river to the waterfall that you’ll see in this slide.
It was a hot day, so walking through green trees on a trail that was even MUDDY at times. It was so cool in the shade with the sounds of the river nearby. Maddie was a happy gal. And seeing the waterfall also made my heart super happy. The water was so clean and it smelled so good. In spite of the crowds that were there, the sound of the water did my heart good, even though it broke a little bit to leave.
We completed this hike and ate and rested in shade before taking off to our next stop: The Tel Dan Nature Reserve.
Tel Dan
“But the people of Dan took what Micah had made, and the priest who belonged to him, and they came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire. And there was no deliverer because it was far from Sidon, and they had no dealings with anyone. It was in the valley that belongs to Beth-rehob. Then they rebuilt the city and lived in it. And they named the city Dan, after the name of Dan their ancestor, who was born to Israel; but the name of the city was Laish at the first.”
Judges 18:27-29
And this is the sad story of Dan…
The beginning of it. Actually, it’s more the middle of it.
This area was absolutely stunning to explore. It’s as close to paradise as I’ve seen here in Israel. The water is so cold and so clear, and it keeps this whole area hydrated.
There are many kinds of trees that grow and thrive here, as many different mosses and ferns. My first sighting of a Maidenhair Fern was along the banks here. We walked and talked about how this area is a marvel, and how the river is what hydrates/hydrated a majority of the land.
In the slide, there is a photo of Tom holding onto the branch of a fig tree. He spoke to us there about the story of the fig tree, in Mark 11:20-26.
And then we went on farther to see a cultic center that was built, and talked about the evils that happened there, and how this would ultimately lead to the punishment and disappearance of the Danites.
Tom led us through the trail to the ruins of the old city ruins there, where we learned about discoveries and marvels and even put it together that David lived in the Iron Age I, and the Biblical timeline ends with the Iron Age as well. We walked and talked as we wandered through these ruins, stumbling over original cobblestones, we came to the gate if this City of Israel. We then learned that this was a fortified city from the time of Jeroboam, and it had many new additions added to it, including the king Ahab. And inside the gates were erected standing stones before you made it to the throne, and those standing stones stood for different gods that would have been worshiped. You would have had to pay your allegiance to either those stones, or to the king who sat at the throne.
As soon as they could, the tribe of Dan strayed from all that God, through Moses, commanded them. And they were soon destroyed. This was terrible, but not surprising, if we look back into Dan's past. Jacob, his father, “blesses” him with what is more like a curse in Genesis 49:16-17.
“Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that his rider falls backward.”
God gave Jacob the insight that the peoples from Dan would be a viper. That he would bite the ones that were not expecting an attack. And it’s a shame, how short a time it took from Moses to the attach on Laish, for this tribe to become an cultish people. A source I found said it was about 50 years between Joshua’s attack on Canaan till then.
And Dan went on to still be an ungodly tribe until the time of Jeroboam who was Solomon’s functionary before becoming the kind of 10 tribes and the Northern Kingdom of Israel, who sent Dan a golden calf to worship. After a certain point, Dan’s tribe just disappears, and what’s left are ruins. And so today, through many discoveries, we were able to see and hear about all of the finds and historical discoveries as well as histories of ugly truths.
Back to Tiberius
I had a great night. After all of the walking, hiking and history lessons, we went back to Beit Bracha for a little while… mostly for naps before we went into Tiberius for dinner.
It wasn’t a kosher restaurant, so it had the perfect meal for every person there. This was day 3 of sweating and walking in high heat and high humidity, and we were all exhausted. It all seemed like we were a little loopy, which made it so much fun to look back on. Thinking back on this night, I remember Tom pointing out the hills on the other side of the Galilee, which we could see from where we were eating. This evening was one where the locations were starting to click into place in my head. Tom had to deal with all of us continuing to ask questions, and the more tired we were, the more easily we were impressed. We had one specific conversation, honestly it’s the only one I mostly remember, and it was about David and Goliath. Tom Brimmer, our tour guide, painted us pictures of this great Philistine giant, how heavy his armor was, how big his bed. Wheels turned in all of our minds that night, and we got more and more excited about exploring the lands of Ancient Israel.
Thanks for reading day 3 of this post series! I’m looking forward to telling you the rest!
- Mads
