jezreel valley

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today we went to mt cermel to the traditional place where elijah had the contest with the prophets of baal because it is the highest place it could have happened anywhere near here the kidron river is at the bottom of the hill

the view from here across the jezreel valley is very nice but its a bit misty today anyway I accidentally left my camera home

when the Jews came to settle here the turks owned it but didnt use it the land was full of swamps and so they stayed away for fear of malaria, a wealthy jew raised the funds to puchase the whole valley from the turks and they drained the swamps, now it is one of the most productive areas of Israel

the tell of megiddo this tell has 25 layers of cities because it was on a major cross road north to south and east to west linking egypt to babylon and all all other major civilizations it was destroyed and rebuilt 25 times one of those was by solomon so here there is evidence of his stables and a grainery from that time there is also a tunnel similar to what hezekiah built in jerusalem but much shorter to bring water from a spring into the city

this may be why it is called megiddo because of the constant wars here, most christians believe armageddon will take place here because of the name but we know from joel,ezek and zech that the battle of Armagedon will take place in Jerusalem in the valley of jehosophat

then to the place where naboth's vinyard was and fromm this vantage spot we could see shunem ahead of us and the mountains of Gilboah to our right and endore where the witch was that saul went to see

we went up the mountains of gilboah where saul and his sons were killed by the philistines and looked out ovr the valley of harod this view was amazing I whish I had my camera

last we went to the spring of harod where gideon took his men to test how they drank it we quite hot here so we didnt drink we splashed it was very refreshing .

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