Blue Psalter Hymnal Number 444

I have no idea why I remember that number 444 in the old blue psalter is "A Mighty Fortress is Our God", but I do.  Today we saw a mighty fortress called Masada.  It was fortified by Herod the Great on a rock plateau near the Dead Sea.

See that plateau on the right?  If you look carefully, you can see ruins on top of it.  The water you see in the background is the Dead Sea.

The holes along the side of the cliff face are cisterns.  

This is a model of what it would have looked like in Herod's time.

Now, Herod wasn't entirely right in the head all of the time.  He was a great king in that he built a great economy for his people, but he did not trust anyone and feared for his throne.  He burned one son, drowned another, and burned his favorite wife over dinner.  He was a desert man and had this fortress fortified as one of his seven palaces.   The cisterns here are said to hold enough water for 10,000 men for 10 years.  That's pretty impressive for a place were in never rains.

See how deep one of the cisterns was?

Of course, to get up, we had to climb.

Take it slow and steady, and you'll make it to the top.

All of the stones in Masada were covered in plaster during Herod's time.

And, because you're Herod, plain plaster wasn't good enough, so it would have had to be painted.

Mosaics decorated the floors.

This is Herod's bathroom.  Yes, his bathroom.  What you're looking at is his bathtub.  It's hard for me to get my mind around that.  His bathtub.

And this is his throne...um...really his toilet.

When you're Herod, living on top of a mountain, you got to have a swimming pool.

If  your Herod, you also need Roman baths.  Don't ask me why you'd want a steam room in the middle of the desert, but if you're Herod, you can.

Notice the Dead Sea in the background.

After Herod died, the place fell into disrepair until a group of Zealots came to live there when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD.  While they were there, they built a synagogue and copied scripture.  This was a four person job.  One read the scripture with someone looking over his shoulder to be sure he read it correctly.  Another wrote it with someone looking over his shoulder to be sure he wrote it correctly.  This is one of the reasons that we canbe assured the scripture is reliable.

The Romans wanted to take Masada out to principle.  Looking over the walls of the fortress, you can still see the outline of where the Roman encampments were.  The Romans spent three years trying to besiege Masada.  They ended up building a ramp up to the top to get them.

You can kind of see the ramp here.  The steps we walked up were next to this.

Rather then being captured by the Romans, the inhabitants killed each other.  Only five survived by hiding.

Masada was also known to David and may be the place that He went to to flee from Saul.

Of course, once you get up a mountain, you have to come down.  We walked back down the Snake Path.  It doesn't look that bad here, but it was pretty steep the whole way down.  I didn't realize how physically demanding it was until we got to the bottom.  Then we really started to sweat and our muscles shook.  Being 100+ degrees contributed to that.

Take away from Masada: I married a great guy.  (I knew this before too.) The hike down was the most physically taxing thing we've done so far, mainly because of the temperature.  He helped, encouraged, and forced me to drink water the whole way down.  

Our next stop of the day was En Gedi.  This is now another park, but it was one of the places that David hid from Saul.  Remember the story about David cutting off the corner of Saul's robe?  That happened here.  Maybe in one of these caves.

That story was about more than David getting close enough to kill Saul, but choosing to let him live.  By cutting off the corner of his robe, David cut off Saul's tzotzil, or tassel.  The tzitzit were a reminder to be obededient to God (kind of like our WWJD braclets) and a symbol of God's protection.  By cutting it off, it was a sign that Saul was not in God's will or under his protection.  That's why David feels guilty after doing it.

En Gedi is an oasis with fresh water springs.  It brings to mind the imagery of Jesus as living water.

Take away from En Gedi: For every desert we encounter, we will find living water to strengthen us.  This could come from a spouse, family member, or friend.  Am I living water to my family? To my students?

We ended our day with a float on the Dead Sea.  I really think this is one of the strangest things I've experienced.  It's like you're floating with pool noodles, but there's no noodles.  Jeff could walk out until the water got chest deep before he couldn't make his feet hit bottom anymore.

Faith, do you recognize the lady in the purple bathing suit?