Day 4 Saturday: Shabbat Shalom

Saturday we started our Biblical journey north, making our first stop at Caesarea.  Peter went here from Joppa to share the Gospel with Cornelius and his family.  Paul stood before Festus, Felix and King Agrippa here.  Herod the Great built a magnificent harbor here after becoming king of the Jews in order to have a sea port for trade. Philip the evangelist lived here.  We visited the theater and palace area and then walked our way along the hippodrome to the later Crusader fortress.

Next stop, Mt. Carmel, site of the epic confrontation between Elijah the prophet and the prophets of Baal.  "You cannot waiver between two opinions" he told them, and as he built an altar to sacrifice to the Lord he reminded them of God's covenant promises.  From here, through the cloudiness we could see the smoke stacks of the power plant that sits on the shore by Caesarea, so certainly Elijah's servant could see a cloud over the sea on a clear day.  We also looked across the valley at Mt. Tabor, Moreh Hill and the beginning of the Gilboa mountains.  This is the Jezreel Valley.

After lunch in a Druze village,  we visited the northern fortress city of Megiddo and its 26 layers.  It was a testimony to the fact that King Solomon violated the warning of gathering too many wives, too much gold, and too many horses.  The Hebrew rendering for a future battle here is that it takes place at Har Meggido.  We know it as Armageddon.  In the valley below toward Mt. Tabor, Barak conquered Sisera in battle, but the woman Jael killed Sisera with a tent peg just as Deborah foretold.

Nazareth was our final stop.  In the ancient Synagogue, Dan read the account of Jesus reading Isaiah 61 and telling them that it was fulfilled in their hearing.  Afterwards, the angry crowd took Him out to a precipice to kill Him and the Scriptures say He just walked away right through the crowd.  As sun set, we wound our way across the valley and down the hill to our home for the next three nights, the Scots Hotel in Tiberius.