Having just finished lunch at a restaurant situated on the Mount of Evil Council south of Jerusalem, we find our pilgrims spending a good while enjoying an excellent view of the city of Jerusalem. From here one can see at least four well known mountains: Mount of Olives, Mount Scopus, Mount Moriah and Mount Zion.
Leaving there, we drove around the west and north sides of the old city of Jerusalem which is surrounded by a two and a half mile wall. This present wall was built by the Turks in 1542. We understand that the designer of the wall was executed after it was built for leaving Mount Zion outside of the city. The wall contains eight gates, one of which is sealed. This is the Golden Gate which faces east to the Mount of Olives.
From the Mount of Olives we could again get an excellent view of Mount Moriah, the site where Abraham’s faith was tested and proved and the former site of God’s temple, the place of communication with His people. It is now a place of Moslem worship in the Dome of The Rock. We could see the Valley of Hinnom, the Kidron, the Garden of Gethsemane, and beyond the old city wall, the new city of Jerusalem which is bustling with activity like any other modern city of the world. It was also interesting to look to the east from the Mount of Olives and clearly see the Dead Sea and the mountains of Jordan fifteen to twenty miles away.
Descending into the Kidron Valley we stopped at the Spring of Gihon from which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had a conduit built to bring water into the city. (2 Kings 20:20). This conduit leads to the Pool of Siloam. That this conduit and pool are the ones made by Hezekiah, is now considered certain from the inscription found in the tunnel itself about twenty feet from the exit into the Pool of Siloam. An interesting fact with regard to this inscription is that it gives the length of the conduit in cubits. By measuring the conduit today in feet and inches, we find that the cubit used in the days of Hezekiah was about 17.5 inches. Since there is no way of telling exactly where the measurement in the inscription began or ended, this is only an approximation. However, it gives us an idea of the length of the cubit. It was to this pool that Jesus sent a blind man after he had anointed his eyes with clay and told him, “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam.” The blind man did as he was told and received sight (John 9:7). There in the Kidron Valley we also saw the remarkably well preserved tombs of both Absalom and Zechariah.
Continuing on to the south-west we visited that is called by the Jews today Mount Zion. Here we saw what is claimed to be the upper room where Jesus met with his disciples the night before his capture and also the tomb of King David. All three of these sites are doubtful as maps of the city of Jerusalem during the days of David show the City of David and Mount Zion to be just south of Mount Moriah. It is probable that David was buried here rather than the traditional site. Of course, it isn’t known in what part of the city the upper room was; however, what we were shown was too modern and well preserved to be the proper building even if it were the correct spot.
The next stop was the Garden of Gethsemane. The garden has been nicely kept and whereas most of the plants in the garden are of the present time period, some of the older olive trees would date back to the time when Christ was in the garden. A large stone, reported by the Catholic church as the place where Christ spent the night in agonizing prayer, is now enclosed within a church.
From the Garden of Gethsemane in the Kidron Valley we drove to the north side of the old city to the Garden Tomb. This tomb was only discovered within the last 40 years and is thought to be the “place of a skull.” The hill beside the garden looks very much like a skull. When the tomb was uncovered close by, it had the amazing condition of having no skeletal remains in it. It would seem most probable that this indeed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea where Jesus was placed. It is complete with the trough for the large circular stone that was used to seal the tomb after Jesus was placed within. It was certainly a feeling of fear and trembling that came upon us as we entered what is most likely the spot where Jesus lay.
We arose early the next morning as usual and went to the United States Freedom Forest where we each planted at least one tree. This is a traditional thing to do and helps Israel in the tremendous task of bringing trees back to the land. Israel has planted over 100,000,000 trees since she became a nation in 1948. This sounds like an awful lot of trees, but it is only a beginning and many more trees are needed in order to bring a cooler climate, more fertile land and a more beautiful countryside. Nearby is the site of the John F. Kennedy Memorial built to represent a tree trunk because his life was cut short. From this spot we could look to the west and see the “Mediterranean Sea about thirty miles away.
On the way back into the city we stopped at the Hadassah Medical Center which is quite a modern hospital. The hospital synagogue contains the famous Jerusalem Windows by Marc Chagall. These stained glass windows are 11.25 feet high by 8 feet wide and depict the twelve tribes of Israel.
As we continued, we passed the Village of Einkarem. a suburb of Jerusalem. This is where Zacharias and Elizabeth lived and where Mary the mother of Jesus went to visit her cousin Elizabeth. (Luke 1:39-41).
Now, once again in the new city of Jerusalem, we stopped at the Holyland Hotel to see the scale model of the city of Jerusalem at the time of Christ. The model is very exact in its detail and gave us an excellent idea of the city topographically, architecturally and historically. While in this part of the city we viewed the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament building; the Shrine of the Book, a circular building containing portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls; and a twelve foot high minora, the seven branched candlestick of Israel. We continued on to the Joppa Gate on the west side of the old city where we stopped for lunch near the Citadel.
In the afternoon we entered the old city through the Lyons Gate. This is also known as Saint Stephens Gate for it was supposedly just outside this gate that Stenhen was stoned (Acts 7:59). We walked down the Via Dolorosa (the path of pain) which is believed to be the street that Christ took when he bore the cross. The original courtyard and path are about five feet below the present road but we were able to see part of the original courtyard in the lower floor of a church.
We climbed the steps to Mount Moriah and entered the Dome of the Rock, also known as the Mosque of Omar. Architecturally it is a beautiful octagonal building dominated by quite a spectacular golden dome. It covers a huge rock projecting from the ground that is held to be the place where Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen. 22:1-14). It is also the location of the threshing-floor of Oman (I Chron. 21:15) where David built an altar to the Lord (verse 26). It is distressing to see a place of Moslem worship upon the spot where Solomon’s temple once stood. It is far more uplifting to think of the day coming soon when this abomination will be no more and God will again make His name to dwell among men on Mount Zion a short distance to the south.
Just west of the Dome of the Rock is the Western Wall, quite often referred to as the Wailing Wall because the Jews go there to worship and wail as they remember the glory of the temple in Solomon’s day. Three temples have been built upon this site and the Western Wall is at that is left of them. The first temple built under the direction of King Solomon was plundered and burned by the Babylonians in about B.C. 586 (2 Kings 25:9-17). The second, called Zerubbabel’s Temple, was begun under the direction of Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 3:10) in about B.C. 535 and finished twenty years later. This was desecrated by the Jew’s enemies and finally destroyed about B.C. 30. The third temple was called Herod’s Temple and was a restoration, enlargement and improvement of Zerubbabel’s Temple. It was built in sections, tearing down the old and building the new part by part, taking forty-six years to complete (John 2:20). This is the temple standing at the time of Christ and later destroyed by the Romans under the siege of Titus in A.D. 70. This remaining Western Wall probably has some stones in it dating back to the time of Solomon and is a place of great sanctity to the orthodox Jew. Separate sections are assigned to men and women. Men approaching the wall must wear a head covering and women require long sleeves. The Jews place prayers on little scraps of paper and push them into the cracks and crevices of the wall. They feel that placing their prayers in such a holy place they are sure to be answered.
We left the temple area through the Dung Gate in the southern wall of the city and returned to our hotel. It had been a full day. One which we would not soon forget as we recalled the past and envisioned the future glory of God’s city of peace.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One