Judaean Mountains

No.

They engineered vast subterranean tunnel networks beneath the Judean Hills to ambush Roman legions.

Wow.

And the primary motivation wasn't just to, you know, escape taxes.

Sometimes there's just a trickle that goes through it.

But over the centuries, it has cut a ravine, a chasm, if you will, a little Grand Canyon in those Judean hills.

It starts up there, and it flows down, down, down, down, down, 1,300 feet below sea level to the Dead Sea.

This ravine, this canyon, that is called the valley of the shadow of death because it is so narrow that at the bottom in some places it's only about 12 feet wide.

It was a very useful canyon, a very useful valley.

In the wintertime, when there was not much grass, the shepherds, uh, would take the sheep down to Jericho, and there the sheep would winter at Jericho and feed there in that, uh, lush grass that would grow even at wintertime.

And then when the spring would come and the Judean hills would grow bright, uh, with, uh, that verdant color of green and the, and the flowers would come out and dot the hillside, the shepherd would lead his sheep through that valley to greener pastures in the highlands.

And that surely is what David had in mind when David wrote this beautiful Psalm because David himself, as a shepherd, doubtless had many times led his sheep through that valley, the valley of the shadow of death.

He motioned for a writing tablet, and to everyone's surprise, he wrote, "His name is John." Instantly, Zechariah could speak again, and he began praising God.

Awe fell upon the whole neighborhood, and the news of what had happened spread throughout the Judean Hills.

Everyone who heard about it reflected on these events and asked, "What will this child turn out to be?" For the hand of the Lord was surely upon him in a special way.

Then his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy: "Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and redeemed His people.

Feel the slow, steady rhythm of your breathing, mirroring the vast, unhurried cadence of the night.

Inhale the stillness of the Judean hillside and exhale all restlessness from your mind.

Your thoughts are growing softer now, dissolving like shadows into the quiet dark.

The image of the young shepherd, resting at the gate of the sheepfold beneath the shelter of the stars, remains before your inner vision.

Even the wild creatures of the night, the foxes in the rocks, the owls in the olive groves, seem to have fallen silent, arrested by the sweet celestial tranquility of the shepherd's song.

Feel your own breathing fall into sync with that gentle nocturnal pulse.

With each slow breath you draw, imagine the peace of that Judean hillside filling your chest, smoothing away every remaining ripple of tension.

With each breath you release, let go of the need to understand, the need to manage, the need to know what lies ahead.

Citron, Persian walnut, Lebanese cedar, birch, myrtle, water lilies.

These are trees that don't originally come from Judean Hills.

They were hauled in from across the empire, probably in order to show the extent of the empire.

The datable plaster there is from the Persian era, so these particular trees come from centuries after Manasseh.

And you can see up on the top, Jerusalem.

This is in the Judean hills.

And when you come down this road, there's this wadi kilt.

This is what you see as well.

This is winning.

This is me patrolling the Judean Hills after celebrating the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah, watching over the expansion of a brand-new Jewish community in the Judean Hills.

To put this into perspective, I was reading a book that day about Israel when I came across this extraordinary quote from former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, and quote, "By the summer, it was no longer safe for Jews to travel from one city to another.

Whenever I had to go from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for a meeting, which was frequently, I kissed the children goodbye in the morning, knowing that I might well never come home again, that my bus might be ambushed, that I might be shot by an Arab sniper at the entrance to Jerusalem, or stoned to death by an Arab mob on the outskirts of Tel Aviv." That's the end quote of Golda Meir.

I'll have to check, you know, when, when scholars say the compilation of Deuteronomy dates from, but I believe historically all of that is in the future.

So, but also it, you know, in terms of the action of the story, there's still just a random group of like 144,000 people hanging out in what is now Jordan, you know, staring across the Jordan Valley at the Judean Hills where Brian just was, he has beautiful pictures of it and thinking, you know, this is really scary.

We're going to get wiped out by all these people who are already living here.

And there's no reason to believe that this is true.