![]() ![]() In Joshua 15:62, Ein Gedi is enumerated among the cities of the Tribe of Judah in the desert Betharaba, but Ezekiel 47:10 shows that it was also a fisherman’s town. ![]() In Genesis 14:7 Hazazon-tamar is mentioned as being an Amorite city, smitten by Chedorlaomer in his war against the cities of the plain. En Gedi thus means “Kid spring.” In the 2 Chron 20:2 it is identified with Hazazon-tamar, where the Moabites and Ammonites gathered in order to fight Jehoshaphat. The name Ein Gedi is composed of two Hebrew words: ein means spring and gedi means goat-kid. The Ein Gedi hot springs – a rare natural phenomenon existing only in Israel On the shores of the Dead Sea, at the foot of the Judean Hills to the west, and facing the Mountains of Moab to the east, at the lowest spot on earth, nature has created thermo-mineral springs with healing properties found nowhere else. Up the ramp the Romans rolled an iron-sheathed siege tower, with rapid-firing catapults and a huge battering ram to breach the fortress wall. According to Josephus, when defeat was inevitable the leader of the Sicarii, Eleazar ben Ya’ir, gave two impassioned speeches persuading his companions to cast lots to kill each other rather than be taken prisoner. Laying siegeto the fortress, he established eight fortified camps linked by a ditch and wall around Masada, then built a ramp on top of a natural bedrock spur to reach the summit. The Roman governor Lucius Flavius Silva waited until Jerusalem had fallen before taking the Tenth Legion to Masada in 72-73. In a night raid for food on the Jewish settlement of En-Gedi, 17km away, he says the Sicarii killed more than 700 Jewish settlers, including women and children, during Passover. By then, Herod had been dead for 70 years.Īccording to the historian Josephus, the Sicarii were unlikely heroes who attacked local villages. In AD 66, at the beginning of the Great Jewish Revolt against Rome, a group of Jewish extremists called Sicarii overran the Roman garrison stationed on Masada. The lower cisterns alone are estimated to have a capacity of 38,000 cubic meters. Water was then carried by men and beasts of burden up winding paths to reservoirs on the summit. To supply water in this arid setting, a sophisticated system channelled winter rainfall from nearby wadis into huge cisterns quarried low into the northwest of the mountain. He wanted a place of refuge in case the Jews should rebel against him, or the Egyptian pharaoh Cleopatra (who coveted Judea) should try to have him killed. Herod planned Masada as a palace stronghold and desert foxhole, and fortified it with walls, gates and towers. After Jerusalem, Masada is Israel’s most popular tourist attraction. The view across the Dead Sea 450 metres below is spectacular. Masada’s summit may be reached by a tortuous “snake path” (which takes a fit person 45 minutes), by a path up the Roman siege ramp (15 minutes) or by a modern cable car. Masada’s symbolic status was boosted by a poem by Yitzchak Lamdan, published in 1927, and by extensive excavations by soldier-archaeologist Yigael Yadin. The story of 960 defenders choosing self-inflicted death rather than surrender has achieved legendary status for the Jewish people, though scholars have questioned its credibility. ![]() Once a palatial refuge for Herod the Great, this massive plateau on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert is better known as the location of a Roman siege against Jewish rebels in AD 74. The rocktop fortress of Masada overlooking the Dead Sea has been invested with a quasi-religious significance as a symbol of resistance for the people of Israel. ![]()
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