A view from the road leading to the top of Mount Tabor.
There is an old song about a little piece of Heaven that settled on the ocean... and they called it Ireland.
The land of Naphtali may not be Ireland, but it certainly is also a little piece of Heaven. Naphtali is one of the twelve sons of Jacob, and the allotment of land for the tribe was on the Western side of the Sea of Galilee. The winding roads take you quickly from the shores of Galilee to the surrounding hills. Real estate is not cheap so every inch of arable land is cultivated. The fields were green from the recent rains. The blossoms on the almond trees were late by a few weeks which meant that we could have the privilege to see them. The winter had been fairly mild, but the week before we arrived it had snowed quite a lot on Mt Hermon.
It was as though the Lord had changed the timing of everything just in order to make it special for us.
There are many special sites with several commemorating church buildings at a lot of them. I decided early on that I wanted to focus on the hills, valleys, rivers and other geological land marks. The reason being that there is quite a lot of speculation on sites that weren't clearly named in the Bible, but those which were named attracted my attention.
Mt Tabor was visible from the bedroom window, and the trip up the mountain made a very worthwhile visit.
We drove through the Jordan valley up to Qumran and the Jerusalem. I didn't know which was Mount Nebo, but the range of mountains where it is located in Jordan are very impressive and literally gave me goosebumps as I thought of Moses being able to see the Promised Land from such an impressive vantage point.
The sights in Jerusalem are too numerous to mention here, but I will say that the garden where the Garden Tomb is located offered a time of prayer and scripture reading that will be a memory which will remain for the rest of my life.
Other places that stood out for us were Nazareth village, Mount Hermon, the science museum in Haifa, Ceaserea, Joppa and Capernaum.
Anemones on Mount Gilboa.
Almond trees, an ancient olive tree and almond blossoms.
On returning home I watched a documentary named Against the Tide, which features the life of Professor John Lennox. The latter third of the documentary is filmed in Israel, and I found it remarkable to be able to relate so intensely with the places that are mentioned and scripture reading now has an added dimension to it. We even went as far as going down on our bellies to drink water from the same place where Gideon had to take his army, so that the Lord could separate the 300 from the rest. (Judges 7:5-6).
Israel is a land of incredible contrasts and a wealth of diversity. I am waiting in hope for the New Jerusalem, but in the meanwhile, I don't think I am quite finished with the present one yet.
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