Shephelah valley with David and Goliath!!

Okay I have procrastinated this one and just have been so extremely busy. Even though it has been about about 2 weeks I totally can't remember all the stuff that I did. I remember the highlights and things that were fun but some of the names of these places has slipped my mind. That is why we've got a wonderful field trip manual that we can go back and look at everything.

We went to Beth shemesh which is in the bible a million times if you look for it. Samason lived here. Beth=house and shemesh=sun After the philistines had stolen the Ark of the Covenant and were cursed/punished they gave it back to the Israelite in the city of Beth Shemesh.

We went to Azekah-tel which was a fortress that was attacked by the Assyrians and survived the first time. The second time wasn't too good. They found a tablet from Lachish another fortress that read, "And my lord know that we are watching for the singal fires of Lachish(a fortress south of Azekah) according to all the signs which my lord has given because we cannot see Azekah." meaning that the flame at Azekah was put out meaning that Azekah had fallen to the Assyrians. It was a pretty cool place to see.

After that we went to maresh/marisa which is another fortress. We went to alot of those that day. Here they had an olive press that was pretty cool. They had a big olive crusher and then other olive squishers that would press out the olive oil. Nearby, they had some bell caves which were cool to go see. Here they carved out the limestone creating huge caves. They used the limestone to line cisters in the ground to collect water.

Lachish was our next stop which was the most impressive of the fortresses. This one is going to come from memory. Actually, I looked. Anyway, it was the largest city in the old testament. Any conquerer would have to take this city to assult Jerusalem. After it was destroyed no one ever moved back and so it is a great tel to do archeology on. You can still see the siege ramp that the Assyrians built to take the city. It is pretty cool to see history from thousands of years in the past still there. The walls were huge!! Around the whole city the walls were about 30 ft. or more high. Some of the walls are still remaining that are about 15 feet and I couldn't imagine trying to get up those walls with people shooting arrows, throwing rocks, and javalines at me.

We went to Gath too. It was a city where Goliath lived and one of the big philistines cities.

We also went to Micah's caves which were really fun to climb all over in. We could discover so many different chambers. It had nothing to do with the bible but it sure was fun.

The last place we went was the valley of Elah where the Philistines and Isrealites met and almost had battle but because one Isrealite boy, had faith in God, and slew the largest giant of the Philistines. We went to the valley picked up smooth rocks from the river, put them in our slings and slung rock exactly in the valley where David and Goliath had their show down!! It was really fun but pretty difficult to get it going fast enough to kill someone and have accuracy. I think it would take me a long time to master the art of slinging.


I will put pictures up when I get the chance..