The following day we left from Lod airport to vi sit the most southerly part of Israel. The flight took approximately one hour and the plane flew very low so that we could see the sights of the desert. It was rugged country but nevertheless beautiful. When we arrived at Eilat, we realized that we were at the Red Sea, and we could not resist taking a boat ride. Eilat gives promise of becoming a large seaport, and there were ocean liners being loaded and unloaded at the docks. We had lunch at a beautiful modern hotel located on the beach. As usual the food was excellent, despite the fact that it had to be brought by truck from Tel-Aviv. From where we stood, we could see four different countries, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. The town is very new, growing quickly and fast becoming a prominent summer resort. There is splendid bathing and very good fishing. Doubtless in the days of Israel’s glory this was a busy port, for from here Solomon’s navy (see 1 Kings 9-26) sailed to Ophir. Many of the men in Eilat work at King Solomon’s mines at Timna, a few miles from Eilat. Timna was a very interesting place, with natural rock pillars rising to great heights. The copper ore is clearly visible and is there in great abundance. It is not a mine as we understand it, since the ore is scrapped up in mechanical shovels, loaded on trucks and taken a short distance to the refinery. In the days of Solomon the ore was smelted in furnaces, but today is chemically treated and only partially refined. We picked up pieces of molten slag which apparently had lain there since Solomon’s days. It is an interesting story how these mines were discovered. We read in Gen. 19-28; “And he (Abraham) looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the cities of the plain, and beheld, an lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.” It would appear that the words “and lo” indicated that the ascent of the smoke was unusual. For this reason, there must have been a severe blast that would cause the smoke to ascend as the smoke of a furnace. This prompted the Jewish explorers to look for a place where the strong winds would create air blasts to provide the necessary currents to smelt copper. This condition was found at Timna, where the winds coming from the south, through the gorges between the high cliffs, reached intense proportions. This is how king Solomon’s copper mine was discovered.
We now left Timna and flew back to Herzlia. The following day we had a very pleasant and interesting visit at the home of professor Picard, one of the famous Picard family. Professor Picard is well known in Israel as the man who found water in the rock. His home is beautifully located in an elevated site on the shores of the Mediterranean. The gardens around his home are very beautiful and quite large. During the British blockade he built what resembles a Japanese tea house constructed of bamboo, with a small space between each bamboo rod. At night he hung a lantern in the tea house and the light shining through the crevices acted as a light house for the refugees who were trying to land in Israel. The refugees during the dark of night would scurry ashore and the professor and his helpers would find shelter for them in nearby Kibbutes. A little later they would infiltrate among the residents. This made it almost impossible for the investigating British to discover them. The refugees and professor Picard and his helpers risked almost certain death to break through the British blockade. However the courage and determination of these people was not to be denied to establish themselves in their promised land. The beautiful 137th Psalm verses 1 to 6 is well worth reading in this connection.
After lunch, we journeyed with the professor to the Jezreel valley. Because of Picard’s efforts in finding water the Jezreel valley is now a virtual paradise of lush fertility. Many attempts had been made by drilling to find water in the valley, but always without success. Professor Picard was finally asked to help and he cited the instance of Moses drawing water from the rock. He read Psalm 78-15, where it says “He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink, as out of great depths, He brought streams also out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers.” Now the professor advised drilling into the rocks at the foot of the Carmel range, and truly the waters gushed forth from the rocks. A personal application could be made here. God cleft the rock of ignorance and unbelief and invited us to drink of the waters of life, not intermittently but constantly, “for blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness.”
We now took our leave of the professor and went on our way to Nazareth. Nazareth is a small Arab village and not at all inviting, and were it not for its wonderful history we would likely have passed it by. But God did not pass it by, (Luke 1-26), “And in the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent forth from God into a city of Galilee named Nazareth. The message that the Angel brought was the most wonderful one ever brought to mankind. We asked our Arab guide, a very intelligent university graduate, if anyone could say where the Angel appeared. Although not sure, he said that this was where Mary dwelt and this was the plateau in front of the dwelling place, intimating that this might have been the exact place. It gave us a strange and wonderful feeling to think that we might be standing in the very place, where the Angel stood.
We visited the home of Mary and Joseph, a large room hewn out of solid rock. A well had been dug in one corner of the room, and it was not only used for drinking, but also for refrigeration. They used to put their food into a container and lower it by a rope into the well. The marks of the rope passing back and forth caused a worn spot which was plainly visible. Again we were overcome by a feeling of awe to be in the same room that Jesus spent his childhood. We wondered why God had chosen Nazareth of all places in the Land. We felt that it could have been to accentuate the wide difference between the humbleness of the beginning of the Saviour, to the heights of glory to which he finally attained. We then visited the carpenter shop where He worked with Joseph. The building was small, and had to be restored from time to time, however the same materials were re-used. Jesus was known as a carpenter (Mark 6-3) and doubtless made His living at his trade. From here we went to the Synagogue where He preached his wonderful sermon (Luke 4-16). Many of the original stones are still part of the building, and we felt that we could almost hear his gracious words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has annointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are brused and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” What a friend we have in Jesus.
Our next visit shall be to the Sea of Galilee, God Willing.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One